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THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

OF THE 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

BY 

W. M. THACKERAY 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND EXPLANATORY 
AND CRITICAL NOTES 



WILLIAM LYON PHELPS 

A.M. {Harvard) Ph.D. {Yale) 
Assistant Professor of English Literature at Yale College 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

IQOO 



44999 



L-ibrMry of Congress 

"IWU COHtS RtCElVEO 

SEP 8 1900 
Co(pyWght entry 

StCCNO COPY 

Ofc<iver(td to 

OROEt? DIVISION, 
SEP 18 1900 



.Tf,„ 



Copyright, 1900, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 

70001 



ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK. 



PREFACE 

In a number of the London Spectator, dated exactly 
forty-seven years ago to-day, the reviewer of Thack- 
eray's new book on the English Humourists remarked, 
'' All will be interested in looking over the accompany- 
ing notes, (which might have been and may yet be made 
more complete)." To 'the best of my knowledge, this 
suggestion in the Spectator — with the exception of a 
few bracketed foot-notes added to the Biographical 
Edition — has never been heeded, and since the editio 
princeps of 1853 there has never appeared an annotated 
edition of these famous lectures. As they are particu- 
larly allusive, the need for explanatory notes is a real 
one, and in this instance I have therefore chosen to err 
on the side of fullness rather than be incomplete. 
Many readers and students may feel some irritation at 
finding things elucidated that in their judgment require 
no comment ; but on the other hand it is hoped that 
few will look to the Notes for necessary explanations, 
and look in vain. 

The text of this edition, with the regular foot-notes, 
is taken, by the kind permission of Messrs. Harper and 
Brothers, from the Biographical Edition of Thack- 
eray's Works. Except in a few obvious typographical 
errors, I have followed this standard text verbatim et 



IV PREFACE 

Hleraiim, correcting in my own Notes at the rear of 
the book errors that occur in the text and foot-notes 
of the Biographical Edition, and pointing out impor- 
tant variations from the text of the first edition. And 
the receipt of corrections of my own errors will be 
gratefully and promptly acknowledged. 

For furnishing some references in the Notes, I wish 
to express my thanks to Professor H. P. Wright, Pro- 
fessor T. D. Goodell, Professor W. L. Cross, and Mr. 
Richard Holbrook, all of Yale, and to Professor G. L. 
Kittredge, of Harvard. 

W. L. P. 

Yale College, ii June i^oo. 



After this book was entirely cast and ready for publi- 
cation, I came across, in the library of the British 
Museum, the following work: ''Thackeray's Lectures 
on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. 
Mit bibliographischen Material, litterarischer Einlei- 
tung und sachlichen Anmerkungen fur Studierende. 
Herausgegeben von Ernst Regel. Halle : Max Nie- 
meyer. 1885-1891." [In six parts, 8°, paper.] I 
greatly regret that this valuable work did not come to 
my notice in time to be of assistance. 

W. L. P. 

London, 19 July, 1900. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION vii 

Life of Thackeray • . . . . vii 

The English Humourists xv 

David Hannay xxi 

Contemporary Reviews xxiv 

1. The Tribune xxiv 

2. Eraser's Magazine xxvi 

3. Putnam's Magazine xxviii 

4. Colburn's New Monthly xxxii 

5. The Spectator xxxiv 

6. The Examiner xxxvi 

7. The Athenaeum xxxix 

THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS i 

NOTES 2Q7 

V 



INTRODUCTION 

THE LIFE OF THACKERAY* 

William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Cal- 
cutta, on the eighteenth of July, 1811. His father, 
Richmond Thackeray, went to India in the service of 
the East India Company, in 1798. He was married 
at Calcutta to Anne Becher, in 18 10; and the great 
novelist was their only child. In 1816 Mr. Thackeray 
died, and the following year the boy was sent to 
England, the ship stopping at St. Helena on the way, 
where a glimpse of Napoleon was obtained. Thackeray 
first went to school in Hampshire, then at Chiswick, 

* The facts given in this sketch are chiefly taken from the Dic- 
tionary of Natio7ial Biography, though the Life by Merivale & 
Marzials, in the " Great Writers " Series, and the biography in 
two volumes by Lewis Melville (1899), have of course been con- 
sulted. Mrs. Ritchie's Introductions to the Biographical Edition 
of Thackeray's Works are invaluable for their biographical data 
and bits of personal information. In her Introduction to the 
Esmond volume will be found some information about the lectures 
on the Humourists; and at the close of the last volume, Ballads 
and Miscellanies, there is a Bibliography of Thackeray's Works. 



Vlll INTROD UCTION 

and from 1822 to 1828 he was at the Charterhouse. 
Here his schoolmate Venables broke his nose in a fight, 
and left an equally indelible impression on his mind, 
for the two became friends for life. Thackeray showed 
no particular ability in scholarship while at school, but 
even then exercised his talents at playful composition 
in verse. 

After leaving the Charterhouse in 1828, he lived with 
his mother and stepfather near Ottery-St. -Mary, in 
Devonshire, the birthplace of Coleridge. The memories 
of these days appear in Pendenms. In February, 1829, 
he went to Cambridge, entering Trinity College. The 
social life of the place was what chiefly appealed to 
him. Mathematics he did not like, and he was but 
illy prepared in the classics. He did some desultory 
writing for the college paper, the most notable attempt 
being his parody of Tennyson's prize poem, Timbuctoo. 
In 1830 he left Cambridge, feeling that the training he 
received there was not of much practical value. From 
his father he inherited about twenty thousand pounds, 
and not wishing to become a lawyer, which profession 
his relatives advised him to enter, and probably in a 
rather undecided frame of mind as to his future, he set 
forth on his travels. 

In this year he went to Weimar, the home of Goethe, 
where he stayed for some time. These must have been 
some of the most pleasant months of his life. He met 
the great poet, studied German, tried his hand at 
translations, and drew caricatures for amusement. 
Finally making up his mind after all to study law, he 
returned to England in 1831, and entered the Middle 



IN TROD UCriON IX 

Temple. This proved to be his last attempt to force 
his genius away from its natural inclinations; for 
although he now really gave the study of law a fair 
trial, the result was that it became more and more irk- 
some to him. He ran over to Paris several times 
during this residence in the Temple. 

In 1833 we find Thackeray mingling more and 
more in literary circles, and living the life of a literary 
Bohemian. He put some of his capital into a paper, 
and became editor as well as proprietor. The venture 
was not a happy one from the financial point of view, 
and early in 1834 the paper ceased to exist. Certain 
failures in investments, combined with occasional losses 
at gambling, produced a serious effect on Thackeray's 
fortune at about this time, and he found himself no 
longer able to live without working for the privilege. 
Accordingly, he made up his mind to become an artist^ 
and to prepare for this career by studying in Paris. 
He worked faithfully, and enjoyed it. 

In 1836 Thackeray became the Paris correspondent 
of a radical paper called the Constitutional.- Thinking 
that he had at last obtained regular employment, 
although his salary was not large, he was married on 
the twentieth of August, in Paris, to Miss Isabella 
Gethin Creagh Shawe, to M(hom he had been engaged 
for some months. The Constitutional failed and the 
next year (1837) Thackeray returned to London, to 
earn a living by his pen. He did all kinds of work, 
reviewing Carlyle's French Revolution among other 
books. For Eraser s Magazine he wrote articles that 
attracted considerable attention, and are now well 



X IN TROD UCTION 

known, the Yellow-Plush Correspondence,'^ for example. 
He also freely indulged his genius for satire in a way 
that he afterwards regretted. 

In 1840 came the great tragedy of his life. After 
the birth of her third daughter, his wife became ill, and 
steadily grew worse, suffering from a singular disease 
of the mind, that baffled all the great assays of art. 
'By 1842 she was in a hopeless condition, and had at 
last to be placed in charge, her mental powers having 
entirely vanished. This unspeakable calamity Thackeray 
endured with the greatest courage and nobility, though 
of course it forever destroyed the possibility of home- 
life and domestic happiness. The children went to 
live with the grandparents in Paris : and with the un- 
fortunate vitality of those whose lives are worse than 
worthless, his wife survived for fifty years. Her death 
in 1892 was a real shock to the world, as it brought 
up so vividly memories of her great husband. 

In 1842 Thackeray began his contributions to 
Punch, which had been started the year before. In 
process of time he became one of its most important 
and valuable contributors, and a volume in itself might 
be written on his connection with this famous paper. 
Here he had a chance to employ both pen and pencil, 
and, better than either, his genius for pure fun. He 

* In Melville's Z?y>, I, 113, note, we read: " The Correspondence 
was published in book form late in 1838 by Messrs. Carey & Hart, 
of Philadelphia. This is the first volume ever issued of any of 
Thackeray's writings." Yet, curiously enough, in the Bibliog- 
raphy at the end of Melville's Life, this volume is nowhere men- 
tioned. It is however, given in the Biog. Ed. Bibliography. 



IN TROD UCTION XI 

contributed nearly four hundred sketches. The Snob 
Papers in Punch were perhaps the first things that really 
gave him a wide circle of readers, and made his name 
generally known. His success with these and other 
literary ventures began to show itself in a financial way; 
his circumstances improved materially, so that in 1846 
he took a house, and brought his daughters to live 
with him. He could now afford to write real litera- 
ture, the thing which had become more and more the 
ambition of his life. In January, 1847, the first 
installment of Vanity Fair appeared; and before the 
publication of the last number in July, 1848. Thack- 
eray's place as a great English novelist was secure. 
■^^ Then followed the other books, which all the world 
knows, Pendennis in 1848-9, Henry Esmond (1852), 
and the Newcomes (1853-55). ^^ 1851 he gave his 
lectures on the English Humourists, and on October 
^o, 1852, he sailed for Boston, where he repeated the 
course in a number of cities in the United States. In 
1855 he visited America again, this time lecturing on 
the Four Georges. Thackeray's object in lecturing 
was simply to earn and lay up money for his children, 
and it is pleasant to note the financial success of his 
tours on both sides of the water. As a lecturer, 
although his audiences went to see the author of 
Vanity Fair rather than to hear his views on literary 
themes, he usually charmed them. His manner was 
entirely unpretentious and refined — in a word, he was 
wholly agreeable and put his hearers immediately at 
their ease. 

In 1857 Thackeray stood for Parliament as a 



Xll INTROD UCTION 

Liberal, representing the city of Oxford. He was for- 
tunately beaten by his opponent, and he complimented 
his successful antagonist in the most gracious manner. 
It is more than probable that he would not have 
especially distinguished himself in the House, and it is 
certain that he employed his time and talents more 
profitably in writing novels. 

In January, i860, the Cornhill Magazine '^2iS st2iT\.&6.y 
and Thackeray accepted the post of editor. This gave 
the periodical great vogue, and made it possible to 
have the most distinguished list of contributors, Tenny- 
son among others. Perhaps the most extraordinary 
thing that Thackeray did in his capacity as editor was 
to refuse a poem contributed by Mrs. Browning, on the 
ground of its immorality. This, as Mr. Birrell says of 
Swinburne's taking Carlyle to task for indelicacy, " has 
an oddity all its own." Thackeray felt that his sub- 
scribers would object, and perhaps he was right in 
rejecting the poem, though, under the circumstances, 
we have to choose between two alternatives : either the 
British constituency of the Cornhtli was pathologically 
prudish, or the Editor was very timid. The corre- 
spondence that passed between Thackeray and Mrs. 
Browning over this incident is deeply interesting,* and 
although Mrs. Browning must have first wept and then 
laughed, she accepted the Editor's judgment in the 
beautiful spirit so characteristic of her wholfe life, and 
actually sent him another contribution ! Surely she 
was not far from the kingdom of God. 

* See the Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Brownings edited by 
Kenyon, Volume II, page 444 et seq. 



INTROD UCTION Xlll 

On the night of December 23, 1863, Thackeray felt 
ill, and the next morning was found dead in his bed. 
He was buried at Kensal Green, and a bust was placed 
in Westminster Abbey. 

His personal appearance was striking. He was 
considerably over six feet in height, and his head was 
very large. His hair was perfectly white in his last 
years, and his clear-cut features gave him a distin- 
guished look. His enemies said he was snobbish, but 
those who really knew the man have given the most 
convincing testimony to the contrary. The truth about 
Thackeray seems to be that he was not simply one of 
the greatest men of his age, but one of the best. The 
old charge of cynicism is now seldom heard, and to 
intelligent readers of his books it has no foundation. 
In his lectures on the Humourists, we see the real man, 
and so far from his being a cynic, his heart was so 
tender, and so susceptible to the personal characteris- 
tics of others, that his judgment of the genius of 
literary men was biased by his feelings. A cynic, to 
be a cynic at all, must certainly lack two things: 
Sympathy and Enthusiasm. These two qualities form 
perhaps the largest element in Thackeray's character, 
and, with his unlimited generosity, make him one of the 
most lovable men in the history of English literature. 
He had faults, but they were not the faults that show 
the cynic or the snob. He has been charged with a 
lack of moral earnestness: but in reality he looked at 
everything from the moral point of view: indeed too 
much so, for his art as a novelist is seriously marred 
by his constant sermonising. All his novels and lee- 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

tures suffer noticeably from this tendency; in the 
Newcomes it is at times almost offensive. Fortunately 
in his greatest single production, Esmond, the artist 
triumphs, and the voice of the preacher is not so loud. 
Perhaps this is one reason why we rate Esmond above 
his other books. Thackeray's religious belief* cannot 
be stated in terms of exact dogma, for he could not 
state it that way himself; but taking his life as a whole, 
we see that he believed in God, and tried to keep His 
commandments. 

* For a striking letter he wrote about this, see Introduction to 
Works, Biog. Edition, VII, xxxiv and xxxv. 



THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. 

Thackeray sailed for America on October ^o, 1852. 
He landed at Boston, after a very long and rough 
passage, and left shortly for New York. In the New 
Fork Tribune for November 1 7, we find the following 
editorial comment : * ' Mr. Thackeray arrived from 
Boston by the express day train yesterday. His first 
lecture will be given on Eriday evening; and we advise 
those who mean to hear it to secure seats to-day. We 
think there will be few unsold to-morrow." The 
Tribune for November 19 contained the following 
advertisement, which gave for the first time the full 
program with the separate dates : 

7^^ Mercantile Library Association. — The Board of 
Direction have the pleasure to announce that Mr. THACKERAY 
will deliver his course of Six Lectures, at Rev. Mr. Chapin's, 
(late Rev. Mr. Bellows's) Church, No. 543 Broadvi^ay, near Prince 
-St., on MONDAY and FRIDAY EVENINGS of each week, 
commencing at 8 o'clock. , - 

Friday, Nov. 19— Swift. ^ ^ c.'^'^^ ^ 

Monday, Nov. 22 — Congreve and Addison.s '-'■ 
Friday, Nov. 26 — Steele and the Times of Queen Anne.'- 
Monday, Nov. 29 — Prior, Gay and Pope.- 
Friday, Dec. 3 — Hogarth, Smollett and Fielding* 
Monday, Dec. 6 — Sterne and Goldsmith. \} \ '■ \ 
Course Tickets to members, $2; to non-members, $3. 
Single Admission to members, 50c. ; to non-members, 75c. 

XV 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

A limited number of single Admission Tickets can be had at 
the Library Rooms, or (unless previously disposed of) at the Door. 
WILLARD L. FELT, Ch'n. \ 
JAMES D. SMITH, [ Lecture Com. 

JOHN F. HALSTED, ) 

The course had to be repeated in New York, because 
of the impossibility of accommodating all who wished 
to hear the lecturer. The lectures accordingly began 
their second round before the first was completed. 
They were given again in the same church on the 
evenings of Dec. i, 7, 10, 13, 15, and 17. Then 
Thackeray went to Boston, giving the opening lecture 
on Tuesday evening, Dec. 21, and continuing on 
Fridays and Tuesdays. There seems to have been 
some jealousy between New York and Boston as to 
which city he would visit first. This difficulty was 
partly solved by his landing at Boston and opening his 
course of lectures at New York, returning to Boston 
after his metropolitan success.* Whether Boston felt 
at all chagrined by the lectures beginning at the other 
city or not is difficult to ascertain. The New York 
Tribune gave full and glowing accounts, extracts from 
which are printed below; while the Boston Advertiser s 
reports were confined to three or four sentences. 

* In Melville's Life^ I, 291, 292, it is stated that the lectures 
were first given in Boston, and the exact dates of his New York 
lectures are erroneously given for the Boston series. Mr. Melville 
has the facts completely twisted. He says Thackeray remained 
in New York for a week, then went to Boston, gave his course 
twice, and then returned to New York to lecture. If we simply 
substitute ''Boston" for "New York," and wV(? T/ffr^a-, we have 
the real facts. 



THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS XVU 

These were, however, favourable in every respect; and 
we know that the lectures were entirely successful in 
Boston. Thackeray lectured also in Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah, 
covering the Atlantic seaboard fairly well, and getting 
to know intimately persons of the most bitter opposi- 
tion in political beliefs. The Civil War was therefore 
interesting to Thackeray in a way that few Englishmen 
found it. 

It is possible that Thackeray did not at first intend 
the Lectures to be published at all ; and he certainly 
determined not to print them until they had first 
achieved their principal object, namely, to enable him 
to save up sufficient money to provide for his children. 
* ' Before he left Washington for the South, his Lectures 
on the English Humourists were announced by Messrs. 
Harper in the list of their forthcoming publications. 
A gentleman, who was conversing with him, asked if 
the volume would be published before he had finished 
his tour. ' Bless you, no, ' the great man replied. 
' Do you think I'd rip open my goose ? ' But when 
that reason no longer existed [1853] they were pub- 
lished with notes by James Hannay, simultaneously in 
England and America, but without illustrations, though 
Thackeray had actually sketched Steele and Dr. Johnson 
and Boswell before the idea was abandoned." i^€i- 
VA\€^ Life of Thackeray, II, 4.) 

The lectures were published in London on the fourth 
of June, 1853, price ten shillings and sixpence. As 
this original edition seems to be hard to find, a photo- 
graphic reproduction of the title page slightly reduced, 
follows. 



XVI 11 IN TROD UCriON 

THE 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



2[ Serfeg zi ILecturejj, 

DBUVERED IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES OP 
AMERICA. 



W. M. THACKEKAY. 

Author of "Esmond," "Pendenais," "Vanity Fair," 4a 



LONDON: 
SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 65, CORNHILL. 

BOMBAY : SMITH, TATLOB, & CO. 

1853. 

£rAe oMlUvr ofthii work reserves to Mrmdf the right of avihOridng 
a translation of it.} 



THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS XIX 

THE 

ENGLISH HTJMOUEISTS 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



a Imn nf %ii\mi. 



W. M. THACKERAY, 

Author of *• EsmoncI," " Pendennis," " Vanity Fair,** Ac. 



NEW YORKj 

HARPER & BROTHERS. PUBLISHERS^ 

399 ft 331 PEARL S T K £ C T, 
VRANKLIIt SQUABS. 

1853. 



XX INTROD UCTION 

This English edition is a volume of 322 pages, size 
7i by 4i inches. 

The first American edition, the title-page of which is 
reproduced on page xix, is a volume of 297 pages, and 
contains in addition to the regular six lectures, a 
seventh called Charity and Humour, first delivered in 
New York City.* 

* The first English edition of the Humourists seems to be sur- 
prisingly scarce, though it does not fetch a great price at auction 
sales. It is not in the libraries of Harvard, or Yale, or the 
Boston Public, or, curiously enough, in the printed catalogue of 
the British Museum, which has only the second edition. I finally 
found a copy in the library of the Boston Athenaeum, and I here 
make acknowledgment for the kindly loan of it, and to the Boston 
Public Library for loaning a copy of the first American edition. 



JAMES HANNAY. 

When the first edition of Thackeray's English 
Utimouris/s sippQSLved in 1853, the foot-notes appended 
to the text were a source of various comment from 
readers and reviewers. There was nothing to show 
whose hand had supplied them, for it was easy to see 
that they were not written by the master himself. In 
the essay on Thackeray, in the volume called Characters 
and Criticisms^ Edinburgh, 1865, by James Hannay, 
we find the following statement on page 55 : '' Toward 
the close of 1852, ' Esmond ' appeared, and Thackeray 
sailed for America." To which Hannay appended 
the following foot-note: *' He recalled the present 
writer from a tour of Scotland in October, and placed 
the MS. of the ' Humourists ' in his hands to edit and 
annotate during his absence." Thus, as Hannay's 
work is now inseparably associated with Thackeray's 
Lectures, and as the annotations were at the lecturer's 
own particular request, it may be well to give some 
brief account of the editor's life. 

James Hannay was born at Dumfries, on the seven- 
teenth of February, 1827. His father was a business 
man who wrote a now forgotten novel. Young Hannay 
entered the navy in 1840, and served in the blockade 

xxi 



XXU IN TROD UCTION 

of Alexandria. With his love of reading and a literary 
life, the career of an officer in the navy began to grow 
more and more distasteful, and in 1845 he was tried 
before a court-martial and expelled from the service. 
No disgrace attaches to Hannay for this misfortune, for 
the affair at the time was generally believed to be the 
result of some personal hatred, and the court's decision 
was finally set aside. But Hannay had had enough of 
the navy, and from 1846 he worked for the press, doing 
what chance literary work he could. In reporting for 
the papers, his excellent memory served him well, and 
he employed leisure hours at the library of the British 
Museum. He became acquainted with Thackeray in 
1848, and began to make headway rapidly in literary 
circles. Besides publishing novels of naval life, which 
at the time had some vogue, he delivered lectures on 
literary themes. Satires and Satirists, published 1854. 
He learned Greek by himself, and had an unquench- 
able intellectual curiosity. He stood for Parliament 
as a Tory in 1857, and was defeated. As a newspaper 
editor, novelist, lecturer, and general author, he 
became a well-known literary figure about i860. In 
1868 he was made consul at Brest, which post he 
exchanged for that of Barcelona. He was married 
twice, in 1853, the year when his notes* to the 
Humourists appeared in print: his wi-fe died in 1865. 
Then in 1868 he was married again, his second wife 
dying two years later. He himself expired very sud- 

* In Melville's Bibliography {Life, II, 301) he says, "The 
Notes were written by Mr. George Hodder." This is, of course, 
a mistake. 



JAMES HANNAY XXI 11 

denly on the ninth of January, 1873, ^"^ ^ suburb of 
Barcelona, 

[The article on Hannay in the Dic/miary of National 
Biography, from which all the facts in the above brief 
sketch are taken, was written by his son David Hannay, 
a journalist, who has published a number of books.] 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS 

OF THACKERAY'S TRIP TO AMERICA AND OF THE 
PUBLISHED LECTURES. 

From the Nezv York Tribune,^ Nov. 20, 1852. 

The opening lecture of Mr. Thackeray's course 
before the Mercantile Library Association was delivered 
last evening. The spacious church (Rev. Mr. Chapin's) 
was filled to the extent of its capacity at an early hour, 
by an audience comprising a large proportion of young 
men, and an unusual number of the distinguished 
literary and professional celebrities of New York. The 
fashionable circles were fully represented by an impos- 
ing array of ladies. Mr. Thackeray stood on an 
elevated platform in front of the pulpit. >i^ * * In 
personal appearance, which in respect to the curiosity 
of the public we may be permitted to allude to, Mr. 

* An editorial in the N'ew York Times for the same day speaks 
of the matter of this first lecture in the most glowing terms ; his 
manner, however, did not greatly impress the Times. His voice, 
which one paper called " a superb tenor," the Times thought 
rather light ; and the relations between his hands and his pockets 
took up nearly a paragraph in the editorial. The Boston corre- 
spondent pf the Time^ differed totally from Thackeray's estimate 
pf Swift, 

jtxiv 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXV 

Thackeray is a fine, well-proportioned specimen of a 
stalwart Englishman — over six feet in stature — with an 
expression of quiet intelligence — and the self-possessed 
bearing of a man of the world, rather than the scholastic 
appearance of the occupant of the library. His intel- 
lectual head, which bears many silvery traces of the 
touch of time, is carried erectly, not without an air of 
reserve, some would say of defiance. In his elocution 
we were happily disappointed. The English journals 
have not done Mr. Thackeray justice in that respect. 
His manner, without any oratorical pretensions, is 
admirably adapted to the lecture-room. As a medium 
of instruction, it is far more grateful to the hearer than 
the more impassioned style, which is often adopted by 
our popular lecturers. The calm flow of his speech is 
so transparent, that the sense shines through it without 
subjecting the mind's eye to a too severe trial. His 
voice is rich, deep, flexible, and equally expressive of 
emotion and thought in its intonations — the words are 
delivered with that clean finish which so often distin- 
guishes the cultivated Englishman — his emphasis is 
pregnant with meaning — and, without any apparent 
effort, his ringing tones fill the ear of the most remote 
listener. Mr. Thackeray uses no gesture, except 
occasionally a convulsive clinching of the fist, or an 
emphatic thrusting of the hand into his pocket or 
under his coat. In short, his delivery was that of a 
well-bred gentleman, reading with marked force and 
propriety to a large circle in the drawing-room. 

The composition of his lecture was masterly. 
Graphic, terse, pointed, epigrammatic, abounding in 



XXVI IN TROD UCTION 

keen flashes of wit, alternately gay and pathetic, it 
displayed the same subtle perception of character, 
and condensed vigor of expression, which distinguish 
Thackeray among most, shall we not say all, modern 
writers of fiction. No report can do anything like 
justice to the numerous felicities of the lecture. 

[The subsequent notices were generally laudatory, 
although in the report of the last lecture in the Tribune 
for Dec. 7, we find the following: 

"The hour for commencing being 8 o'clock, 
Mr. Thackeray appeared punctually at eighteen minutes 
past the time, and proceeded with his lecture." 

At the close of this last lecture, resolutions of appre- 
ciation were voted by the audience.] 

From Eraser s Magazine^ January, 1853.* 
MR. THACKERAY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

To the Editor 0/ Eraser's Magazitie : 

You may remember, my dear sir, how I prognosti- 
cated a warm reception for your Mr. Michael Angelo 
Titmarsh in New York — how I advised that he should 
come by a Collins rather than a Cunard liner — how 
that he must land at New York rather than at Boston 
— or at any rate, that he mustn't dare to begin lectur- 
ing at the latter city, and bring ' cold joints ' to the 
former one. In the last particular he has happily fol- 
lowed my suggestion, and has opened with a warm 

* This burlesque article was signed "John Small," but it was 
immediately recognised as Thackeray's own work. 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXVll 

success in the chief city. The journals have been full 
of him. On the 19th of November, he commenced his 
lectures before the Mercantile Library Association 
(young ardent commercialists), in the spacious New 
York Church belonging to the fiock presided over by 
the Rev. Mr. Chapine; a strong row of ladies — the 
cream of the capital — and an ' unusual number of the 
distinguished literary and professional celebrities. ' 
The critic of the New York Tribime is forward to com- 
mend his style of delivery as ' that of a well-bred gentle- 
man, reading with marked force and propriety to a 
large circle in the drawing-room.' 'So far, excellent. 
This witness is a genilevian of the press, and is a credit 
to his order. But there are some others who have 
whetted the ordinary American appetite of inquisitive- 
ness with astounding intelligence. 

****** 

You cannot help perceiving that the lion in America 
is public property and confiscate to the public weal. 
They trim the creature's nails, they cut the hair off his 
mane and tail (which is distributed or sold to his 
admirers), and they draw his teeth, which are frequently 
preserved with much the same care as you keep any 
memorable grinder whose presence has been agony, and 
departure delight. 

Bear leading is not so in vogue across the Atlantic 
as at your home in England; but lion leading is in- 
finitely more in fashion. 

Some learned man is appointed Androcles to the 
new arrival. One of the familiars of the press is 
despatched to attend to the latest attraction, and by 



XXVIU INTROD UCTION 

this reflecting medium the lion is perpetually presented 
to the popular gaze. The guest's most secret self is 
exposed by his host. Every action — every word — every 
gesture is preserved and proclaimed — a sigh — a nod — 
a groan — a sneeze — a cough — or a wink — is each 
written down by this recording minister, who blots out 
nothing. No tabula rasa with him. The portrait is 
limned with the fidelity of Parrhasius, and filled up 
with the minuteness of the Daguerre process itself. 
No blood-hound or Bow-street officer can be keener, 
or more exact on the trail than this irresistible and 
unavoidable spy. 'Tis in Austria they calotype crimi- 
nals: in the far West the public press prints the identity 
of each notorious visitor to its shores. 

In turn Mr. Dickens, Lord Carlisle, Jenny Lind, and 
now Mr. Thackeray, have been lionized in America. 
They go to see, themselves a greater sight than all. 

[Thackeray may have felt that this article would 
cause some irritation; he therefore closed it with a 
graceful tribute to American hospitality, reprinted from 
the concluding remarks of his last lecture in New York, 
Dec. 6, 1852. Curiously enough, in alluding to this 
lecture, he gave the date as Dec. 7, a mistake in which 
he is followed by Mr. Melville, Life, I. 297.] 

From Putnam' s Magazine, June, 1853. 
THACKERAY IN AMERICA. 

Mr. Thackeray's visit at least demonstrated, that if 
we are unwilling to pay English authors for their books, 
we are ready to reward them handsomely for the oppor- 



CONTEMFORARV REVIEWS XXIX 

tunity of seeing and hearing them. If Mr. Dickens, 
instead of dining at other people's expense, and making 
speeches at his own, when he came to see us, had 
devoted an evening or two in the week to lecturing, 
his purse would have been fuller, his feelings sweeter, 
and his fame fairer. It was a Quixotic crusade, that 
of the Copyright, and the excellent Don has never for- 
given the windmill that broke his spear. 

Undoubtedly, when it was ascertained that ]\Ir. 
Thackeray was coming, the public feeling on our side 
of the sea was very much divided as to his probable 
reception. " He'll come and humbug us, eat our 
dinners, pocket our money, and go home and abuse 
us, like that unmitigated snob Dickens," said Jona- 
than, chafing with the remembrance of that grand ball 
at the Park Theatre, and the Boz tableaux, and the 
universal wining and dining, to which the distinguished 
Dickens was subject while he was our guest. 

" Let him have his say," said others, " and we will 
have our look. We will pay a dollar to hear him, it 
we can see him at the same time ; and as for the abuse, 
why it takes even more than two such cubs of the 
roaring British lion to frighten the American eagle. 
Let him come, and give him fair play." 

He did come, and has had his fair play, and has 
returned to England with a comfortable pot of gold 
holding $12,000, and with the hope and promise of 
seeing us again in September, to discourse of something 
not less entertaining than the witty men and sparkling 
times of Anne. We think there was no disappointment 
with his lectures. Those who knew his books found 



XXX INTROD UCTION 



I 



the author in the lecturer. Those who did not know 
the books were charmed in the lecturer by what is 
charming in the author, the unaffected humanity, the 
tenderness, the sweetness, the genial play of fancy, and 
the sad touch of truth, with that glancing stroke of 
satire, which, lightning-like, illumines while it withers. 
The lectures were even more delightful than the books, 
because the tones of the voice, and the appearance of 
the man, the general personal magnetism, explained 
and alleviated so much that would otherwise have 
seemed doubtful or unfair. For those who had long 
felt in the writings of Thackeray a reality, quite inex- 
pressible, there was a secret delight in finding it justified 
by his speaking. For he speaks as he ^yrites, simply, 
directly, without flourish, without any cant of oratory, 
commending what he says by its intrinsic sense, and 
the sympathetic, and humane way in which it was 
spoken. Thackeray is the kind of "stump-orator" 
that would have pleased Carlyle. He never thrusts 
himself between you and his thought. If his concep- 
tion of the time and his estimate of the men differ from 
your own, you have at least no doubt what his view is, 
nor how sincere and necessary it is to him. Mr. 
Thackeray considers Swift a misanthrope. He loves 
Goldsmith, and Steele, and Harry Fielding. He has 
no love for Sterne, great admiration for Pope, and 
alleviated admiration for Addison. How could it be 
otherwise .? How could Thackeray not think Swift a 
misanthrope, and Sterne a factitious sentimentalist .? 
He is a man of instincts, not of thoughts. He sees 
and feels. He would be " Shakspeare's call-boy " 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXXI 

rather than dine with the Dean of St. Patrick's. He 
would take a pot of ale with Goldsmith rather than a 
glass of Burgundy with the " Reverend Mr. Sterne," 
and that, simply, because he is Thackeray. He would 
have done it as Fielding would have done it, because 
he values one genuine emotion above the most dazzling 
thought, because he is, in fine, a Bohemian, " a minion 
of the moon, ' ' a great, sweet, generous human heart. 

We say this with the more unction now, that we 
have the personal proof of it in his public and private 
intercourse while he was here. 

The popular Thackeray-theory, before his arrival, 
was of a severe satirist, who concealed scalpels in his 
sleeves and carried probes in his waistcoat pockets; a 
scoffer and sneerer, and general infidel of all high aim 
and noble character. Certainly we are justified in 
saying that his presence among us quite corrected this 
idea. 

We conceive this to be the chief result of Thackeray's 
visit, that he convinced us of his intellectual integrity; 
he showed us how impossible it is for him to see the 
world, and describe it other than he does. He does 
not profess cynicism, nor satirize society with malice. 
There is no man more humble, none more simple. 

yf. yf. y^ yf' y^ "yf. 

There is no man who masks so little as he, in 
assuming the author. His books are his observations 
reduced to writing. It seems to us as singular to 
demand that Dante should be like Shakspeare, as to 
quarrel with Thackeray's want of what is called ideal 



XXXll INTROD UCTION 

portraiture. Even if you thought, from reading his 
Vanity Fair, that he had no conception of noble 
women, certainly after the lecture upon Swift, after all 
the lectures, in which every allusion to women was so 
manly, and delicate, and sympathetic, you thought so 
no longer. 

He sf: * * * * 

Mr. Thackeray's success was very great. He did 
not visit the West, nor Canada. He went home with- 
out seeing Niagara Falls. But wherever he did go, he 
found a generous social welcome, and a respectful and 
sympathetic hearing. He came to fulfil no mission : 
but he certainly knit more closely our sympathy with 
Englishmen. 

From Colburn's New Monthly. Reprinted in The Eclectic 
Magazine, December, 1853. 

THACKERAY'S LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH 
HUMORISTS. 

'* Heroes and Hero-worship " — a subject chosen by 
Mr. Carlyle, when he arose to discourse before the 
sweet shady-sidesmen of Pall Mall and the fair of 
Mayfair — is not all the res vexanda one would predicate 
for a course of lectures by Mr. Titmarsh. If the 
magnificence of the hero grows small by degrees and 
beautifully less before the microscopic scrutiny of his 
valet, so might it be expected to end in a minus sign, 
after subjection to the eliminating process of the 
"Book of Snobs." Yet one passage, at least, there 
is in the attractive volume before us, instinct with hero- 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXXlll 

worship, and, some will think, (as coming from such a 
quarter,) surcharged with enthusiasm, — where the lec- 
turer affirms, " I should like to have been Shakspeare's 
shoeblack-^ — just to have lived in his house, just to have 
worshipped him — to have run on his errands, and seen 
that sweet serene face." At which sally, we can im- 
agine nil admira7-i folks exclaiming, (if they be capable 
of an exclamation,) " Oh, you little snob! " Never- 
theless, that sally will go far to propitiate many a 
reader hitherto steeled against the showman of ' ' Vanity 
Fair," as an inveterate cynic — however little of real 
ground he may have given for such a prejudice. 

As with clerical sermons, so with laic lectures, there 
are few one pines to see in print. In the present 
instance, those who were of Mr. Thackeray's audience 
will probably, in the majority of cases, own to a sense 
of comparative tameness as the result of deliberate 
perusal. Nevertheless, the book could be ill spared, 
as books go. It is full of sound, healthy, manly, 
vigorous writing — sagacious in observation, independ- 
ent and thoughtful, earnest in sentiment, in style 
pointed, clear, and straightforward. 

If we cared to dwell upon them, we might, however, 
make exceptions decided if not plentiful against parts of 
this volume. That Mr. Thackeray can be pertinaciously 
one-sided was seen in his " Esmond " draught of the 
Duke of Marlborough. A like restriction of vision seems 
here to distort his presentment of Sterne and of Hogarth. 



XXXIV IN TROD UCTION- 

The lecture on Congreve is Titmarsh all over. . . . 
Addison meets with warmer eulogy than might have 
been expected. He is invariably mentioned with lov- 
ing deference. . . . We have not the heart to inquire, 
here, whether the portrait, as a whole-length, is not 
too flattering in its proportions, and too bright in 
coloring. But doubtless the lecturer might, and many, 
we surmise, expected that he would, take a strangely 
opposite view of Pope's " Atticus. " . . . Steele is one 
of Mr. Thackeray's darlings. 

****** 

They [the readers] may stumble here and there — 
one at the estimate of Pope's poetical status, another 
at the panegyric on Addison, and some at the scanty 
acknowledgments awarded to Hogarth and to Sterne. 
But none will put down the book without a sense of 
growing respect for the head and the heart of its author, 
and a glad pride in him as one of the Representative 
Men of England's current literature. 

From The Spectator (London), June ii, 1853. 

Mr. Thackeray is amongst us once again, and gives 
welcome notice of his reappearance by the publication 
of the famous lectures we heard two years ago. Since 
that time they have drawn crowds of interested listeners 
in many of our great towns. Those who came once 
to see and hear the author of ' ' Vanity Fair, ' ' and to 
watch at a safe distance the terrible satirist, whose 
dressing-gown, like that of the old Prankish King, was 
trimmed with the scalps of slaughtered *' snobs," were 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXXV 

attracted to continue their attendance to the close of 
the course by the engaging manner of the lecturer, just 
sufficiently elevated above the frank familiarity of the 
best society, by his expressive but always pleasant 
voice, by his unconcealed desire to make a favourable 
impression upon his audience, no less than by the 
sense, the sound feeling, the delicate irony, the pro- 
found human experience, or the fascinating style of the 
lectures. It has been a great triumph for Mr. Thack- 
eray to have established this personal relation between 
himself and the admirers of his books; so that hence- 
forth he speaks to them through these books, not as an 
abstraction, a voice issuing from a mask, but as a living 
man, and a friendly, companionable, accomplished 
gentleman. 

Mr. Thackeray's English success has been more than 
repeated in America; fulfilling the hope with which we 
closed our review of Esmond, " that his genial presence 
would add another to the many links which bind 
England to the United -States." The Americans have 
been delighted with their guest ; and he is not the man 
upon whom either the cordiality of their reception, 
or the greatness of their future, or the expanding 
energies of their present, are likely to be lost ; nor will 
he regard every deviation from the Belgravian code of 
manners as necessarily an infringement upon those 
principles of manliness, kindness, simplicity, and feel- 
ing for the beautiful, by which all codes of manners 
will one day come to be tested. In him, American 
men, women, and institutions have a critic at once 



XXX VI IN TR OD UC TION 

frank, fearless, and friendly: already, as we hear, 
countesses and duchesses lift up astonished eyes at 
being told by one who is a favourite in their sacred 
circle, that the women of Boston, Baltimore, and New 
York — *' creatures" belonging to merchants, lawyers, 
and men of letters — are as good as themselves. 
****** 

In turning over the pages of Mr. Thackeray's Lec- 
tures, (which, by the way, abound in misprints, requir- 
ing the vigilance of the proof-corrector for the next 
edition,) we find, as we expected, many points of 
literary criticism on which questions could and will be 
raised. Persons whose tastes and studies have led them 
to our older literature and history, no less than those 
whose training is emphatically modern, will consider 
that Mr. Thackeray has placed far too high the general 
moral and intellectual level of the eighteenth century. 
****** 

To those who attended the lectures the book will be 
a pleasant reminiscence, to others an exciting novelty; 
and all will be interested in looking over the accom- 
panying notes, (which might have been and may yet be 
made more complete,) as an agreeable selection of the 
facts and passages from writings on which the lecturer's 
judgment was founded. 

From The Exmniner (London), June II, 1853. 

Followed by admiring audiences "in England, 
Scotland, and the United States of America," these 
lectures have obtained their purpose, have achieved all 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXXVU 

reasonable fame as well as other substantial results for 
the lecturer, and present very little to us now to 
challenge attention from a reviewer. The chase is 
over, the sport run down, there was no place in the 
hunt for the critic, and where at last should he come 
in but with the laggers who fill up the cry. What 
matters his good or ill word .? The book is sure to 
sell. 

Of criticism in the strict sense of the word, indeed, 
however masterly their descriptive passages, the lectures 
may be said to have contained little, to have pretended 
to little. 

****** 

the lecturer must excuse us for saying that he is too 
fond of looking up to great imaginary heights, or of 
looking down from the same; and that hence, too 
often, he places his heroes in the not enviable predica- 
ment on the one hand of being too much coaxed, 
patronised, or (which is much the same thing) abused ; 
and on the other of being put upon a top shelf so very 
high and out of the way, that if we do not take 
Mr. Thackeray's word that they really are there, we 
should not, in those inaccessible places, be in the least 
likely ourselves to discover them. We could not for 
the life of us have recognised oui old friend Addison 
in the grand, calm, pale, isolated attitude which he is 
here shown off in, as one of ' ' the lonely ones of the 
world; " any more than we should have looked for the 
wise and profound creator of Mr. Shandy and my 
Uncle Toby in the ruff and motley clothes of a travel- 



XXXVlll INTROD UCTION 

ling jester, laying down his carpet and tumbling in the 
street. 

But what fine things the lectures contain! what 
eloquent and subtle sayings, what wise and earnest 
writing! how delightful are their turns of humour; with 
what a touching effect, in the graver passages, the 
genuine feeling of the man comes out ; and how vividly 
the thoughts are painted, as it were, in graphic and 
characteristic words. For those who would learn the 
art of lecturing, the volume is a study. The telling 
points are so happily seized, and the attention always 
so vividly kept up, yet never with a pressure or strain. 
The lecture-room is again before us as we read — the 
ready responses of the audience flashing back those 
instant appeals of the speaker — and a great, intelligent, 
admiring crowd, stirred and agitated in every part with 
genial emotions and sympathy. 

Mr. Thackeray's lectures, we may observe in con- 
clusion, are printed pretty much as they were spoken, 
except that additions have been made (we notice this 
particularly in Swift) in connection with particular 
writings of the humourists not at first introduced, and 
that a great many notes are appended illustrative of 
statements or opinions irx each lecture. We are not 
quite sure that these notes will be thought an improve- 
ment. They are not generally very apt, they have no 
merit of rare or out-of-the-way reading, and here and 
there they have tant soit peu of a book-making aspect. 
The lectures had better have been left to run alone, 
which they could well afford to do. 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS XXXIX 

[This comment on the notes affords an interesting 
contrast to the opinion expressed by the Spectator. 
See above.] 

From The Athenau7n (London), June 1 8, 1853 and a second notice 
in issue for the June 25, 1853. 

How far the lives and works of such personages as 
Swift, Steele, Prior, Fielding, and Smollett — five figures 
in Mr. Thackeray's gallery of Humourists — could be 
at once plainly and humorously treated by the most 
devoted Humour- worshipper, for the edification of. an 
audience of the two sexes, admits of debate. 

;}; ;f; * ^ ^ ;(; 

From a portion of his audience — with such themes as 
his — many things had to be either hidden, or indicated 
so darkly and distantly as to be unmeaningly harmless. 
Thus, a certain tone of trifling must inevitably have 
been assumed as the leading tone of such lectures by 
any one desirous of suiting means to ends. Now, all 
the world knows this to be INIr. Thackeray's habitual 
mood. Real earnestness never spoke with so little 
apparent earnestness as in his mouth. When his 
audiences sat down to listen to him, he warned them 
in the outset that he could not hope to entertain them 
"with a merely humorous or facetious story." Yet, 
after this, he could treat them to a drolling digression, 
to a dangling of good and evil in day-light, star-light, 
and lamp-light, so that the one should seem the other, 
and "both, neither" — to a conclusive inconclusive- 
ness — to a pleasant song, in brief, rather than a literary 



xl JNTROD UCTION 

essay of any deep authority or value. Slight, however, 
as is the work, it is not without valuable treasures, 
deep imbedded here and there among its shallows. 

Hs * * * * * 

Proceeding with these desultory notes, it may be 
observed, that while some readers of these ' Lectures ' 
will deem our author's estimate of Addison over-elab- 
orate in its praise, — others (and ourselves among the 
number) will fancy that he has been hard on Congreve. 

>1j >K * * * * 

When * The Spectator ' was placed on a pedestal at 
the expense of ' The Way of the World, ' our shrewd 
student of the Augustan life and literature of England 
forgot what were the several destinations of the two 
works, — and laid too unfairly on the author's indi- 
viduality the blame belonging to the miry place down 
to which Comedy lured the pretty fellows and toasts of 
the town to find their diversion. 

5ji 5jl 5fl ^ 5fC JyC 

We return to this welcome book at the name of 
Prior, — of whom, we think, the lecturer might have 
made more had it pleased him to exercise his poignant 
skill in painting a conversation picture showing the 
English diplomatist at the Hague. 

* * * * Hi * 

Our lecturer thinks that Moore has read Prior closely. 
It may be so, but the signs of such study escape us. 

***** >K 

Perhaps the figure in this gallery on which our Lec- 
turer has bestowed his utmost pains is Pope. Here 



CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS xH 

Mr. Thackeray rises into a greater refinement of dis- 
tinction, into a graver sympathy with his subject, than 
is his wont. He dwells like a true lover of " letters " 
(somewhat different this from a lover of literature) on 
the fascinations of Pope's correspondence; and after a 
flourish of praise in its behalf something pompous, but, 
we doubt not, sincere — falls into a homelier tune which 
is holy and charming. 

He ^ :Jc 5fi ^ 4^ 

We can point to Mr. Thackeray's appreciation of 
Sterne with entire approval. ' ' Yorick ' ' was, indeed, 
a fair subject for a denunciatory sermon, addressed to 
the sentimentalists of Vanity Fair, — and its morals, and 
his want of morals, are not spared by our preacher. — 
With Goldsmith Mr. Thackeray's series closes. The 
author of the ' Vicar ' is genially and tenderly handled. 
But it has been his fate, after death, to be loved by all 
who have commemorated him with uncommon ardour, 
indulgence and unanimity. —To conclude: — none will 
read these Lectures, whether in agreement or in differ- 
ence, without looking forward to the announcement of 
some future series from their shrewd and suggestive 
discourser. 



THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY* 

Swift 

In treatiHg of the English Humourists of the past 
age, it is of the men and of their Hves, rather 
than of their books, that I ask permission to 
speak to you; and in doing so, you are aware that 
5 I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely hu- 
mourous or facetious story. Harlequin without 
his mask is known to present a very sober counte- 
nance, and was himself, the story goes, the melan- 
choly patient whom the doctor advised to go and 

lo see Harlequin f — a man full of cares and per- 
plexities like the rest of us, whose Self must always 
be serious to him, under whatever mask or disguise 
or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all 
of you here must needs be grave when you think 

15 of your own past and present, you will not look to 

* The notes to these lectures were chiefly written by James 

Hannay. A few corrections and additions, chiefly due to later 
investigations, are now inserted; for which the publishers have to 

thank Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Sidney Lee, and Mr. L. Stephen. 

20 t The anecdote is frequently told of our performer John Rich 

■ (1682 ?-i76i), who first introduced pantomimes, and himself acted 
Harlequin. 



2 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

find, in the histories of those whose lives and feel- 
ings I am going to try and describe to you, a story 
that is otherwise than serious, and often very sad. 
If Humour only meant laughter, you would j 
scarcely feel more interest about humourous writers 5 
than about the private life of poor Harlequin just 
mentioned, who possesses in common with these 
the power of making you laugh. But the men re- 
garding whose lives and stories your kind presence 
here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, 10 
appeal to a great number of our other faculties, be- 
sides our mere sense of ridicule. The humourous 
writer professes to awaken and direct your love, 
your pity, your kindness — your scorn for untruth, 
pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the 15 
weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To 
the best of his means and ability he comments on 
all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. 
He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher, 
so to speak. Accordingly, as he finds, and speaks, 20 
and feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him 
— sometimes love him. And, as his business is to 
mark other people's lives and peculiarities, we mor- 
alise upon his life when he has gone — and yester- 
day's preacher becomes the text for to-day's ser-25 
mon. 

Of English parents, and of a good English family 
of clergymen,* Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, 

* He was from a younger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His 
grandfather, the Reverend Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, in 3C 
Herefordshire, suffered for his loyalty in Charles I.'s time. That 
gentleman married Elizabeth Dryden, a member of the family of the 
poet. Sir Walter Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness 



SWIFT 3 

seven months after the death of his father, who had 
come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went 
to school at Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity 
College, Dublin, where he got a degree with difh- 
5 culty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, 
by the recommendation of his mother, Swift was re- 
ceived into the family of Sir William Temple, who 
had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his pa- 
tron in 1694, and the next year took orders in Dub- 

lolin. But he threw up the small Irish preferment 
which he got and returned to Temple, in whose 
family he remained until Sir William's death in 
1699. His hopes of advancement in England failing, 
Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of 

15 Laracor. Hither he invited Esther Johnson,* Tem- 

in such points, the exact relationship between these famous men. 
Swift was " the son of Dryden's second cousin." Swift, too, was 
the enemy of Dryden's reputation. Witness the " Battle of the 
Books": — "The difference was greatest among the horse," says 
20 he of the moderns, " where every private trooper pretended to the 
command, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers." And 
in Poetry, a Rhapsody, he advises the poetaster to — 

" Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, 
For these our critics much confide in, 
5 Though merely writ, at first for filling. 

To raise the volume's price a shilling." 

" Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet," was the phrase of Dryden 
to his kinsman, which remained alive in a memory tenacious of 
such matters. 

„Q * " Miss Hetty " she was called in the family — where her face, 
and her dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real 
fact about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand 
pounds. [The statement that Esther Johnson was Temple's natural 
daughter, was first made by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 

35 i757> who also asserted that Swift was Temple's natural son; and 
that a discovery of their relationship was the secret of Swift's mel- 
ancholy. The statement about Swift is inconsistent with known 
dates. The story about Esther may be true, but it depends mainly 
upon late and anonymous evidence.] 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



^ 



pie's natural daughter, with whom he had con- 
tracted a tender friendship while they were both 
dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional i 
visit to England, Swift now passed nine years at j 
home. 5 

In 1 710 he came to England, and, with a brief 
visit to Ireland, during which he took possession I 
of his deanery of Saint Patrick, he now passed four 
years in England, taking the most distinguished 
part in the political transactions which terminated 10 
with the death of Queen Anne. After her death, 
his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over, 
Swift returned to Dublin, where he remained twelve 
years. In this time he wrote the famous " Dra- 
pier's Letters " and '' Gulliver's Travels." He mar- ^5 
ried * Esther Johnson (Stella), and buried Esther 
Vanhomrigh (Vanessa), who had followed him to 
Ireland from London, where she had contracted a 
violent passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift 
was in England, which he quitted for the last time 20 
on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in Jan- 
uary 1728, and Swift not until 1745, having passed 
the last five of the seventy-eight years of his 
life with an impaired intellect, and keepers to watch 
him.f 25 

* The marriage is accepted by Swift's last biographer, Sir H. Craik. 
It was disbelieved by Forster, and cannot be regarded as certain. 

t Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking 
about the house for many consecutive hours; sometimes he re- 
mained in a kind of torpor. At times he would seem to struggle to 30 
bring into distinct consciousness, and shape into expression the in- 
tellect that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A 
pier-glass falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said he wished 
it had ! He once repeated slowly several times, " I am what I am." 
The last thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a maga-35 



SWIFT 5 

You know, of course, that Swift has had many 
biographers; his Hfe has been told by the kindest 
and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires 
but can't bring himself to love him; and by stout 
5 old Johnson,* who, forced to admit him into the 
company- of poets, receives the famous Irishman, 
and takes ofif his hat to him with a bow of surly 
recognition, scans him from head to foot, and 
passes over to the other side of the street. Doctor 
lo (afterwards Sir W. R.) Wilde of Dublin,! who has 

zine for arms and stores, which was pointed out to him as he went 
abroad during his mental disease: — 

" Behold a proof of Irish sense: 
Here Irish wit is seen: 
15 When nothing's left that's worth defence, 

They build a magazine ! " 

* Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a 
copious " Life " by Thomas Sheridan (Doctor Johnson's " Sherry "), 
father of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever 

20 Irish Doctor Thomas Sheridan, Swift's intimate, who lost his chap- 
laincy by so unluckily choosing for a text on the King's birthday, 
" Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof ! " Not to mention less 
important works, there is also the Remarks on the Life and Writings 
of Doctor Jonathan Swift, by that polite and dignified writer, the 

25 Earl of Orrery. His Lordship is said to have striven for literary 
renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him 
by his father, who left his library away from him. It is to be feared 
that the ink he used to wash out that stain only made it look big- 
ger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with people 

3(jwho knew him. His work (which appeared in 1751) provoked a good 
deal of controversy, calling out, among other brochures, the interest- 
ing Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks, &c., of Doctor Delany. 

t Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift 
and Stella being brought to the light of day— a thing which hap- 

35 pened in 1835, when certain works going on in Saint Patrick's 
Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. 
One hears with surprise of these skulls " going the rounds" of 
houses, and being made the objects of dilettante curiosity. The 
larynx of Swift was actually carried off ! Phrenologists had a low 

^o opinion of his intellect from the observations they took. 

Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in his 
writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the skull 



O ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

written a most interesting' volume on the closing 
years of Swift's life, calls Johnson " the most, 
malignant of his biographers : " it is not easy for an 
English critic to please Irishmen — perhaps to try 
and please them. And yet Johnson truly admires 
Swift: Johnson does not quarrel with Swift's 
change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of religion: 
about the famous Stella and Vanessa controversy 
the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But 
he could not give the Dean that honest hand of his;io 
the stout old man puts it into his breast, and moves 
ofif from him.* 

Would we have liked to live with him? That is 
a question which, in dealing with these people's 
works, and thinking of their lives and peculiarities, 
every reader of biographies must put to himself. 
Would you have liked to be a friend of the great 
Dean? I should like to have been Shakspeare's 
shoeblack — just to have lived in his house, just to 
have worshipped him — to have run on his errands, 20 
and seen that sweet serene face. I should like, as a 
young man, to have lived on Fielding's staircase in 
the Temple, and after helping him up to bed per- 
haps, and opening his door with his latchkey, to 
have shaken hands with him in the morning, and 25 



gave evidence of " diseased action " of the brain during life— such as 
would be produced by an increasing tendency to " cerebral conges- 
tion." [In 1882 Dr. Bucknell wrote an interesting article to show 
that Swift's disease was ' labyrinthine vertigo,' an affection of the 
ear, which would account for some of the symptoms.] ag 

* I' He [Doctor Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable 
prejudice against Swift; for I once took the liberty to ask him if 
Swift had personally offended him, and he told me he had not."— 
Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. 



SWIFT 7 

heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast 
and his mug of small beer. Who would not give 
something to pass a night at the club with Johnson, 
and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esquire, of 

5 Auchinleck? The charm of Addison's companion- 
ship and conversation has passed to us by fond tra- 
dition — but Swift? If you had been his inferior 
in parts (and that, with a great respect for all per- 
sons present, I fear is only very likely), his equal 

loin mere social station, he would have bullied, 
scorned, and insulted you; if, undeterred by his 
great reputation, you had met him like a man, he 
would have quailed before you,* and not had the 
pluck to reply, and gone home, and years after writ- 

15 ten a foul epigram about you — watched for you in 
a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's 

* Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their 
success was" encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking 
the Dean whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his educa- 

20tion. Swift, who hated that subject cordially, and, indeed, cared 
little for his kindred, said sternly, " Yes; he gave me the education 
of a dog." " Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on the 
table, " you have not the gratitude of a dog ! " 

Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, 

25 even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he 
brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the 
amusing circumstances may be once more repeated here. He had 
unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant Bettes- 
worth — 

30 " Thus at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, 

Though half-a-crown o'erpays his sweat's worth. 
Who knows in law nor text nor margent, 
Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant ! " 

The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented him- 
35 self at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. "Sir, I am Ser- 
jeant Bett-es-worth." 

" In what regiment, pray ? " asked Swift. 

A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at 
this time. 



8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

blow and a dirty bludgeon. If you had been a lord 
with a blue riband, who flattered his vanity, or 
could help his ambition, he would have been the 
most delightful company in the world. He would 
have been so manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, 5 
and original, that you might think he had no object 
in view but the indulgence of his humour, and that 
he was the most reckless simple creature in the j 
world. How he would have torn your enemies to I 
pieces for you! and made fun of the Opposition ! 10 
His servility was so boisterous that it looked like 
independence ; * he would have done your errands, 
but with the air of patronising you ; and after fight- 
ing your battles, masked, in the street or the press, 
would have kept on his hat before your wife and 15 I 
daughters in the drawing-room, content to take that 
sort of pay for his tremendous services as a bravo.f 

* " But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my senti- 
ments from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of 
my friend Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him 20 
happily and properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would 
give it the softest name, was ever untractable. The motions of his 
genius were often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron 
than of a friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise."— 
Orrery. 25 

t '* . . . An anecdote, which, though only told by Mrs. Pilking- 
ton, is well attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he 
went to dine with the Earl of Burlington, who was newly married. 
The Earl, it is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, 
did not introduce him to his lady, nor mention his name. After 30 
dinner said the Dean, * Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing; sing 
me a song.' The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of 
asking a favour with distaste, and positively refused. He said, ' She 
should sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you 
take me for one of your poor English hedge-parsons; sing when 35 
I bid you.' As the Earl did nothing but laugh at this freedom, the 
lady was so vexed that she burst into tears and retired. His first 
compliment to her when he saw her again was, ' Pray, madam, are 
you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last ? ' To 
which she answered with great good-huttiour, ' No, Mr. Dean} I'll 40 



SWIFT 9 

He says as much himself in one of his letters to 
Bolingbroke: — "All my endeavours to distinguish 
myself were only for want of a great title and for- 
tune, that I might be used like a lord by those who 

shave an opinion of my parts; whether right or 
wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation 
of wit and great learning does the office of a blue 
riband or a coach-and-six." * 

Could there be a greater candour? It is an out- 

lolaw, who says, "These are my brains; with these 
I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These are 
my bullets; these I'll turn into gold; " and he hears 
the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like 
Macheath, and makes society stand and deliver. 

15 They are all on their knees before him. Down go 
my Lord Bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue ri- 
band, and my Lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. 
He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent 
place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, 

20 and gives them over to followers of his own. The 
great prize has not come yet. The coach with the 

sing for you if you please.' From which time he conceived a great 
esteem for her."— Scott's Life. "... He had not the least tincture 
of vanity in his conversation. He was, perhaps, as he said himself, 

25 too proud to be vain. When he was polite, it was in a manner 
entirely his own. In his friendships he was constant and undis- 
guised. He was the same in his enmities."— Orrro'. 

* " I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a 
lord to the meanest of my acquaintances,"— /ojtnia/ to Stella. 

30 " I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me 

their books and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given 

their names to my man, never to let them see rsxc."— Journal to 

Stella. 

The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier:— 

35 " Did I ever tell you that the Lord Treasurer hears ill with the 
left ear, just as I do ? ... I dare not tell him that I am so, for fear 
he should think thai I counterfeited to make my court ! "—Journal to 
Stella. 



lO ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

mitre and crozier in it, which he intends to have for 
his share, has been delayed on the way from Saint 
James's; and he waits and waits until nightfall, 
when his runners come and tell him that the coach 
has taken a different road, and escaped him. So he 5 
fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides 
away into his own country.* 

* The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and 
the other: and the Whig attacks made the Ministry Swift served 
very sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition 10 
pamphleteers, and bewails their " factitiousness " -in the following 
letter:— 

Bolingbroke to the Earl of Strafford. 

*' Whitehall: July z^rd, 1712. 
"It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country 15 
are too weak to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who 
presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even 
scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of honour. 
This, my Lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condi- 
tion of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake 20 
licentiousness for libertjr. All I could do was to take up Hart, the 
printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail 
to be prosecuted; this I have done; and if I can arrive at legal 
proof against the author, Ridpath, he shall have the same treat- 
ment." 25 

Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous in- 
dignation. In the history of the last four years of the Queen, the 
Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of 
the press and the abusive language of the other party:— 

" It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have 30 
been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the pub- 
lic. . . . The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, 
and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of writers by subscrip- 
tion, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have 
a style and genius levelled to the generality of their readers. ... 35 
However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be cured 
by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a Bill for a much 
more effectual regulation of it was brought into the House of Com- 
mons, but so late in the session that there was no time to pass it, 
for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp overmuch the 4^ 
liberty of the press." 

But to a clause in the proposed Bill, that the names of authors 
should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his Rever- 



SWIFT II 

Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point 
a moral or adorn a tale of ambition as any hero's 
that ever lived and failed. But we must remember 
that the morality was lax — that other gentlemen 
5 besides himself took the road in his day— that pub- 
lic society was in a strange disordered condition, 
and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. 
The Boyne was being fought and won, and lost — 

ence objects altogether; for, says he, "besides the objection to 
lOthis clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing ex- 
cellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, out of 
an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names, it is certain that all 
persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible modesty 
and suspicion of themselves upon first sending their thoughts into 
I5the world." 

This " invincible modesty " was no doubt the sole reason which 
induced the Dean to keep the secret of the " Drapier's Letters 
and a hundred humble Christian works of which he was the author. 
As for the Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with 
20them. He writes to Stella:— 



Journal. Letter XIX. 

"London: March 25th, 1710-11. 
"... We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him 
pickled '~i a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece; and the 

25 fellow that showed would point to his body and say, ' See, gentle- 
men, this is the wound that was given him by his Grace the Duke 
of Ormond;' and 'This is the wound,' &c.; and then the show 
was over, and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our 
laws would not suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he 

30 was not tried; and in the eye of the law every man is innocent 
till then. ..." 

Journal. Letter XXV IL 

London: July 25th, 1711. 
" I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped 
35 to hinder a man of his pardon, who was condemned for a rape. 
The Under-Secretary was willing to save him; but I told the Secre- 
tary he could not pardon him without a favourable report from the 
Judge; besides, he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and 
deserved hanging for something else, and so he shall swing. 



12 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

the bells rung in William's victory, in the very same 
tone with which they would have pealed for James's. 
Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for 
themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and insti- 
tutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in 5 
the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble, almost 
everybody gambled; as in the Railway mania — 
not many centuries ago — almost every one took his 
unlucky share: a man of that time, of the vast tal- • 
ents and ambition of Swift, could scarce do other- lo 
wise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at 
his opportunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, 
his subsequent misanthropy are ascribed by some 
panegyrists to a deliberate conviction of mankind's 
unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by casti-i5 
gation. His youth was bitter, as that of a great ge- 
nius bound down by ignoble ties, and powerless in a 
mean dependence; his age was bitter,* like that of 
a great genius, that had fought the battle and nearly 
won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards, 20 
writhing in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to 
the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, 
or disappointment, or self-will. What public man 
— what statesman projecting a coup — what king de- 
termined on an invasion of his neighbour — what 25 
satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an 
individual, can't give a pretext for his move? There 
was a French General the other day who proposed 
to march into this country and put it to sack and 
pillage, in revenge for humanity outraged by our3o 

* It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of 
mourning. 



SWIFT 13 

conduct at Copenhagen: there is always some ex- 
cuse for men of the aggressive turn. They are of 
their nature warhke, predatory, eager for fight, 
pkmder, dominion.* 
5 As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as 
strong a wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I 
am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of 
his claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One 
can gaze, and not without awe and pity, at the 

10 lonely eagle chained behind the bars. 

That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dub- 
lin, on the 30th November 1667, is a certain fact, 
of which nobody will deny the sister island the 
honour and glory; but, it seems to me, he was no 

15 more an Irishman than a man born of English par- 
ents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. f Goldsmith was an 

* " These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the Flying Post 
and Medley in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always maul- 
ing Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog 
20 under prosecution, bvit Bolingbroke is not active enough; but I 
hope to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. They 
get out upon bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh 
bail; so it goes round." — Journal to Stella. 
t Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations; 
25 and his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every 
now and then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (Scott's 
Sivift, vol. xix. p. 97), he says: — 

" We have had your volumes of letters. . . . Some of those who 
highly value you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved 
30 to find you make no distinction between the English gentry of this 
kingdom, and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and 
some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom) ; but 
the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more 
civilised than many counties in England, and speak better English, 
35 and are much better bred." 

And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the follow- 
ing:— 

" A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports 

Mr. Wood to say ' that he wonders at the impudence and insolence 

40 of the Irish in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true 



14 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Irishman, and always an Irishman: Steele was 
an Irishman, and always an Irishman: Swift's heart 
was English and in England, his habits English, 
his logic eminently English; his statement is 
elaborately simple; he shuns tropes and metaphors, 5 
and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and 
economy, as he used his money: with which he 
could be generous and splendid upon great occa- 
sions, but which he husbanded when there was no 
need to spend it. He never indulges in needless 10 
extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse 
imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a 
grave simplicity and a perfect neatness.* Dreading 
ridicule too, as a man of his humour — above all, an 
Englishman of his humour — certainly would, he is 15 

English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for 
granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked." — 
Scott's Sivift, vol. vi. p. 453. 

He goes further, in a good-humoured satirical paper. On Barbarous 
Denominations in Ireland, where (after abusing, as he was wont, the 20 
Scotch cadence, as well as expression) he advances to the " Irish 
Brogue," and speaking of the " censure " which it brings down, 
says: — 

" And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad conse- 
quence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the least 25 
liable to- such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being born 
in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education has 
been chiefly in that kingdom." — Ibid. vol. vii. p. 149. 

But, indeed, if we are to make anything of Race at all, we must 
call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old 30 
Yorkshire family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one 1 

* " The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with 
that of his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day 
at a Sheriff's feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, ' Mr. 
Dean, The Trade of Ireland ! ' he answered quick: 'Sir, I drink 35 
no memories ! ' . . . 

" Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who 
prided himself on saying pert things . . . and who cried out — ' You 
must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit ! ' ' Do you so ? ' 
says the Dean. ' Take my advice, and sit down again ! ' 40 

" At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her 



SWIFT 15 

afraid to use the poetical power which he really pos- 
sessed; one often fancies in reading him that he 
dares not be eloquent when he might; that he does 
not speak above his voice, as it were, and the tone 
5 of society. 

His initiation into politics, his knowledge of busi- 
ness, his knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance 
with literature even, which he could not have pur- 
sued very sedulously during that reckless career at 

10 Dublin, Swift got under the roof of Sir William 
Temple. He was fond of telling in after life what 
quantities of books he devoured there, and how 
King William taught him to cut asparagus in the 
Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor Park, 

15 with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at the 
upper servants' table, that this great and lonely 
Swift passed a ten years' apprenticeship — wore a 
cassock that was only not a livery — bent down a 
knee as proud as Lucifer's to supplicate my Lady's 

20 good graces, or run on his honour's errands.* It 

long train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine 
fiddle and broke it; Swift cried out — 

' Mantua vse miserae nimium vicina Cremonse ! ' " 

■ — Dr. Delany: Observations upon Lord Orrery's "Remarks, &c. on 

2sSzvift." London, 1754. 

* " Don't yovt remember how I used to be in pain when Sir Wil- 
liam Temple would look cold and out of humour for three or 
four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons ? I have 
plucked up my spirits since then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentle- 

30man." — Journal to Stella. - 

[It should be added that this statement about the twenty pounds 
a year, and the upper servants' table, came from a hostile story told 
long afterwards by a nephew of Temple to Richardson the novelist. 
It is probably true enough of Swift's first stay as a raw lad in the 

35 family; but Temple came t) value Swift's services much more highly, 



1 6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, or 
following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard 
the men who had governed the great world — meas- 
ured himself with them, looking up from his silent 
corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, 5 
turned them, and tried them, and marked them. 
Ah! what platitudes he must have heard! what 
feeble jokes! what pompous commonplaces! what 
small men they must have seemed under those 
enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, uncouth, silent lo 
Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck 
Temple, that that Irishman was his master? I sup- 
pose that dismal conviction did not present itself 
under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never 
have lived with Swnft. Swift sickened, rebelled, left 1 5 
the service — ate humble pie and came back again; 
and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, 
swallowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy 
rage to his fortune. 

Temple's style is the perfection of practised and 20 
easy good breeding. If he does not penetrate very 
deeply into a subject, he professes a very gentle- 
manly acquaintance with it; if he makes rather a 
parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, as it 
was the custom for a gentleman to envelop his head 25 
in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he 
wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in 
them with a consummate grace, and you never 
hear their creak, or find them treading upon any 



and induced him to return from Ireland by promises of preferment. 3*-* 
Temple's death prevented their fulfilment, but it is clear that he 
had come to treat Swift with great respect.] 



SWIFT" ly 

lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. 
When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, 
he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat ^of 
Shene or Moor Park; and lets the King's party 
5 and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out 
among themselves. He reveres the Sovereign (and 
no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so 
elegant a bow); he admires the Prince of Orange; 
but there is one person whose ease and comfort he 
10 loves more than all the princes in Christendom, 
and that valuable member of society is himself, 
Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in 
his retreat : between his study-chair and his tulip- 
beds,''' clipping his apricots and pruning his es- 

jr * " . . . The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, 
and fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man's hap- 
piness in the tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body; for 
while we are composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in 
the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages say the same 

20 things in very different words, so in several ages, countries, consti- 
tutions of laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by 
very different expressions: what is called by the Stoics apathy, or 
dispassion; by the sceptics, indisturbance; by the Molinists, 
quietism; by common men, peace of conscience— seems all to mean 

25 but great tranquillity of mind. . . . For this reason Epicurus passed 
his life wholly in his garden; there he studied, there he exercised, 
there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode 
seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and 
indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of 

30 the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the clean- 
ness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking; but, 
above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to 
favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of 
sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the 

35 body and mind. . . . Where Paradise was, has been much debated, 
and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it may per- 
haps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian word, 
since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was 
much in use and delight among the kings of those Eastern coun- 

40 tries. Strabo describing Jericho: ' Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae 
sunt etiam aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans. 



1 8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

says,— the statesman, the ambassador no more; but 
the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman 
and courtier at Saint James's as at Shene; where, 
in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court 
to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with 5 
the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with 
the ruddy nymph of gardens. 

Temple seems to have received and exacted a 
prodigious deal of veneration from his household, 
and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled 10 
by the people round about him, as delicately as any 
cf the plants which he loved. When he fell ill in 
1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition; 
mild Dorothea his wife, the best companion of the 
best of men — 15 

" Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, 
Trembing beheld the doubtful hand of fate." 

As for Dorinda, his sister, — 

" Those who would grief describe, might come and trace 
Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. 20 

To see her weep, joy every face forsook, 
And grief flung sables on each menial look. 
The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, 
That furnished spirit and motion through the whole," 

spatio stadiorum centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami25 
paradisus.' " — Essay on Gardens. 

In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose con- 
duct and prudence he characteristically admires: — 

"... I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in 
Stafltordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no30 
higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of 
plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has 
very well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts 
upon peaches and grapes; and a good plum is certainly better than an 
ill peach." 35 



SWIFT 19 

Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting 
the menials into a mourning livery, a line image? 
One of the menials wrote it, who did not like that 
Temple livery nor those twenty-pound wages. Can- 
5 hot one fancy the uncouth young servitor, with 
downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, follow- 
ing at his honour's heels in the garden walk; or 
taking his honour's orders as he stands by the great 
chair, where Sir William has the gout, and his feet 
10 all blistered with moxa? When Sir William has the 
gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second 
table;* the Irish secretary owned as much after- 

* Swift's Thoughts on Hanging. 
' {Direction's to Servants.) 

15 "To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all in- 
dignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes 
of a place at Court, a command in the army, a succession to the 
stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you 
cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running away with 

20 your master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon 
the road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will 
meet many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry 
one, and make a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some 
instructions. 

25 " The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you 
are going to be hanged: which, either for robbing your master, for 
housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel 
by killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, 
and is owing to one of these three qualities: either a love of good- 

30 fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. 
Your good behaviour on this article will concern your whole com- 
munity: deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations: a hun- 
dred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about the 
bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the 

35 court; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a 
pardon for discovering your comrades: but I suppose all this to be 
in vain; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another 
day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate: 
some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt 

40 and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon: take leave 



?0 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

wards; and when he came to dinner, how he must 
have lashed and growled and torn the household 
with his gibes and scorn! What would the steward 
say about the pride of them Irish schollards — and 
this one had got no great credit even at his Irish 5 
college, if the truth were known — and what a con- 
tempt his Excellency's own gentleman must have 
had for Parson Teague from Dublin! (The valets 
and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to say 
which Swift thought the more contemptible.) Andio 
what must have been the sadness, the sadness and 
terror, of the housekeeper's little daughter with the 
curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, 
when the secretary who teaches her to read and 
write, and whom she loves and reverences above alP5 
things — above mother, above mild Dorothea, above 
that tremendous Sir William in his square toes and 
periwig, — when Mr. Szvift comes down from his 
master with rage in his heart, and has not a kind 
word even for little Hester Johnson? 20 

Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's 
condescension was even more cruel than his frowns. 
Sir William would perpetually quote Latin and the 
ancient classics a propos of his gardens and his 
Dutch statues, and platcs-handes, and talk about 25 
Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Caesar, 
Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, 

cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with 
courage: fall on your knees; lift up your eyes; hold a book in your 
hands, although you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the gal- 30 
lows; kiss and forgive the hangman, and so farewell: you shall be 
buried in pomp at the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall 
not touch a limb of you;^ and your frame shall continue until a sue* 
cessor of equal renown stseceeds in your place< i . . " 



SWIFT 21 

Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the 
Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would men- 
tion Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and 
that this precept probably meant that wise men 

5 should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid 
Epicurean; he is a Pythagorean philosopher; he is 
a wise man — that is the deduction. Does not Swift 
think so? One can imagine the downcast eyes lifted 
up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which they 

loemit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens; 
Pope says nobly (as everything Pope said and 
thought of his friend was good and noble), " His 
eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charm- 
ing archness in them." And one person in that 

15 household, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor 
Park, saw heaven nowhere else. 

But the Temple amenities and solemnities did 
not agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a 
surfeit of Shene pippins; and in a garden-seat 

20 which he devised for himself at Moor Park, and 
where he devoured greedily the stock of books 
within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness 
which punished and tormented him through life. 
He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even 

25 in that poem of courtly condolence, from which we 
have quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he 
breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad 
shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own 
grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and 

30 forsaken by fortune, and even hope. 

I don't know anything more melancholy than 
the letter to Temple, in which, after having broke 



22 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches pit- 
eously towards his cage again, and deprecates his 
master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders. 

" The particulars required of me are what relate 
to morals and learning; and the reasons of quitting 5 
your honour's family — that is, whether the last was 
occasioned by any ill action. They are left entirely 
to your honour's mercy, though in the first I think 
I cannot reproach myself for anything further than 
for infirmities. This is all I dare at present beg 10 
from your honour, under circumstances of life not 
worth your regard : what is left me to wish (next 
to the health and prosperity of your honour and 
family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the 
opportunity of leaving my acknowledgments at 15 
your feet. I beg my most humble duty and service 
be presented to my ladies, your honour's lady and 
sister." 

Can prostration fall deeper? could a slave bow 
lower? * 2° 

* " He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of 
that great man." — Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the Dean. 

" It has since pleased Gad to take this good and great person to 
himself."— Frr/ac^ to Temple's Works. 

On all public occasions, Swift speaks ^of Sir William in the same 25 
tone. [The letter given above was written 6th October 1694, and is 
humiliating enough. Swift's relation to Temple changed, as already 
said. The passages, however, which follow, no doubt show a strong 
sense of " indignities " at one time or other.] But the reader will 
better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he 30 
suffered in his household, from the subjoined extracts from the 
Journal to Stella: — 

" I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d 

ailed him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him 
I observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he 35 



SWIFT 23 

Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, de- 
scribing the same man, says: — 

" Dr. Swift came into the cofifee-house and had a 
bow from everybody but me. When I came to the 

5 antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. 
Swift was the principal man of talk and business. 
He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his 
brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place for a 
clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to un- 

lodertake, with my Lord Treasurer, that he should 
obtain a salary of £200 per annum as member of 
the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. 
Gwynne, Esquire, going into the Queen with the 
red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to 

15 say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out 
his gold watch, and telling the time of day, com- 
plained that it was very late. A gentleman said he 
was too fast. * How can I help it,' says the Doctor, 

would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; 
20 and one thing I warned him of — never to appear cold to me, for I 
would not be treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of 
that in my life already " (meaning Sir William Temple), &c. &c. — 
Journal to Stella. 

" I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William 
25 Temple because he might have been Secretjiry of State at fifty; and 
here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment." — Ibid. 

" The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have 
often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being 
Secretary of State."— 75 ici. 
30 *' Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is 
now quite well. I was playing at one-and-thirty with him and his 
family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence apiece to begin 
with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple." — Ibid. 

" I thought I saw Jack Temple [nephew to Sir William'] and his 
35 wife pass by me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of 
them. I am glad I have wholly shaken off that family." — 5". to S., 
Sept. 1710. 



24 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

' if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go 
right?' Then he instructed a young nobleman, 
that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a 
papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into 
English, for which he would have them all sub- 5 
scribe : ' For,' says he, ' he shall not begin to print 
till I have a thousand guineas for him.' * Lord 
Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through 
the room, beckoning Doctor Swift to follow him — 
both went ofif just before prayers."t lo 

There's a little malice in the Bishop's " just before 
prayers." 

This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, 
and is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He 
was doing good, and to deserving men, too, in the 15 
midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His jour- 
nals and a thousand anecdotes of him relate his 
kind act5 and rough manners. His hand was con- 
stantly stretched out to relieve an honest man — he 
was cautious about his money, but read3^ If you 20 
were in a strait, would you like such a benefactor? 
I think I Avould rather have had a potato and a 
friendly word from Goldsmith than have been be- 
Swift must be allowed," says Doctor Johnson, " for a time, to 
have dictated the political opinions of the English nation." 25 

A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doc- 
torls liveliest sallies. " One, in particular, praised his Conduct of 
the ^//jM.— Johnson: ' Sir, his Conduct of the Allies is a performance 
of very little ability. . . . Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written 
the Conduct of the Allies ! ' "— Boswell's Life of Johnson. 30 

t The passage as quoted in the text is slightly abbreviated. It 
may be observed that Swift fulfilled his promises of support to the 
" clergyman," Dr. Fiddes, author of a good life of Wolsey, and was 
very useful to Pope. Many other instances could be given c' the 
" kind acts " mentioned in the next paragraph. 35 



SWIFT 25 

holden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner.* He 
insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, 
guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and 
flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No; 
5 the Dean was no Irishman — no Irishman ever gave 
but with a kind word and a kind heart. 

It is told, as if it were, to Swift's credit, that the 
Dean of Saint Patrick's performed his family de- 
votions every morning regularly, but with such 

10 secrecy that the guests in his house were never in 
the least aware of the ceremony. There was no 
need surely why a Church dignitary should assem- 
ble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was 
afraid of heathen persecution. But I think the 

1 5 world was right, and the bishops who advised 
Queen Anne when they counselled her not to ap- 
point the autlior of the " Tale of a Tub " to a 
bishopric, gave perfectly good advice. The man 

* " Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first 

2otinie, it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by 
some abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this 
were well taken, and ansv/ered with good-humour, he afterwards'' 
made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resent- 
ment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further 

25 intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote 
of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean, having 
decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass, and 
seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. 
* For,' said he, ' I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul 

30wine for me.' Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humour, thanked 
him, and told him ' he did not know the difference, but was glad 
to get a glass at any rate.' * Why, then,' said the Dean, ' you shan't, 

for I'll drink it myself Why, take you, you are wiser than a 

paltry curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for 

35 upon my making the same speech to him, he said he did not under- 
stand such usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the 
same token, I told the gentleman who recommended him to me that 
the fellow was a blockhead, and I had done with him.' "— 
Sheridan's Life of SwifL 



26 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that 
wild book, could not but be aware what must be 
the sequel of the propositions which he laid down. 
The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, 
who chose these as the friends of his life, and the re- 5 
cipients of his confidence and affection, must have 
heard many an argument, and joined in many a 
conversation over Pope's port, or St. John's bur- 
gundy, which would not bear to be repeated at 
other men's boards. 10 

I know of few things more conclusive as to the 
sincerity of Swift's religion than his advice to poor 
John Gay to turn clergyman, and look out for a 
seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the " Beg- 
gar's Opera" — Gay, the wildest of the wits about 15 
town — it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised 
to take orders — to invest in a cassock and bands — 
just as he advised him to husband his shillings and 
put his thousand pounds out at interest. The 
Queen, and the bishops, and the world, were right 20 
in mistrusting the religion of that man.''' 

* From the Archbishop of Cashell. 

" Cashell: May ^isf, 1735. 
" Dear Sir, — I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, 
that I am resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to 25 
be overmatched; and as I have some reason to hope what is past 
will be forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to put the 
best colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends 
judge right of my idleness; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded 
from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky un-30 
foreseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one trouble- 
some affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the prime 
Serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me a 
true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful collection 
of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me, they 35 
were born in such a town of England or Ireland; were consecrated 



SWIFT 27 

I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's 
religious views, except in so far as they influence 
his literary character, his life, his humour. The 
most notorious sinners of all those fellow-mortals 
5 whom it is our business to discuss — Harry Field- 
ing and Dick Steele — were especially loud, and I 
believe really fervent in their expressions of belief; 
they belaboured freethinkers, and stoned imaginary 
atheists on all sorts of occasions, going out of their 

10 such a year; and if not translated, were buried in the Cathedral 
Church, either on the north or south side. Whence I conclude that 
a good bishop has nothing more to do than to cat, drink, grow fat, 
rich, and die; which laudable example I propose for the remainder 
of my life to follow; for to tell you the truth, I have for these four 

1 5 or five years past met with so much treachery, baseness, and in- 
gratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on 
any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse a generation. 

" I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your 
health. Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy 

20you can take to recover your flesh; and I do not know, except in 
one stage, where you can choose a road so suited to your circum- 
stances, as from Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike 
and good inns, at every ten or twelve miles' end. From Kilkenny 
hither is twenty long miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have 

-5 an expedient for you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, 
there lives in a neat thatched cabin a parson, who is not poor; his 
wife is allowed to be the best little woman in the world. Her 
chickens are the fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. 
Besides, the parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps 

30the key, where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can 
be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and 
pulls out the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to 
meet you with a coach; if you be tired, yovi shall stay all night; 
if not, after dinner, we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by 

35nine; and by going through fields and bye-ways, which the parson 
will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie 
between this place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope 
you will be so kind as to let me know a post or two before you set 
out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things 

40prepared for you. It may be, if you ask him. Cope will come: he 
will do nothing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive 
promise, I shall add no more arguments to persuade you, and am, 
with the greatest truth, your most faithful and obedient servant, 

" Theo. Cashell." 



2S ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

way to bawl their own creed, and persecute their 
neighbour's, and if they sinned and stumbled, as 
they constantly did with debt, with drink, with all 
sorts of bad behaviour, they got upon their knees 
and cried " Peccavi " with a most sonorous ortho- 5 
doxy. Yes; poor Harry Fielding and poor Dick 
Steele were trusty and undoubting Church of Eng- 
land men; they abhorred Popery, Atheism, and 
wooden shoes and idolatries in general; and hic- 
cupped Church and State with fervour. 10 

But Swift? His mind had had a diiTerent school- 
ing, and possessed a very different logical power. 
He was not bred up in a tipsy guardroom, and did 
not learn to reason in a Covent Garden tavern. He 
could conduct an argument from beginning to end. 15 
He could see forward with a fatal clearness. In his 
old age, looking at the '' Tale of a Tub," when he 
said, '' Good God, what a genius I had when I 
wrote that book! " I think he was admiring, not 
the genius, but the consequences to which the 20 
genius had brought him — a vast genius, a magni- 
ficent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and daz- 
zl'ng, and strong, — to seize, to know, to see, to 
flash upon falsehood and scorch it into perdition, 
to penetrate into the hidden motives, and expose 25 
the black thoughts of men, — an awful, an evil 
spirit. 

Ah man! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's li- 
brary, you whose friends were Pope and St. John — 
what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind 30 
yourself to a life-long hypocrisy before the Heaven 
which you adored with such real wonder, humility. 



SWIFT 29 

and reverence? For Swift's was a reverent, was a 
pious spirit — for Swift could love and could pray. 
Through the storms and tempests of his furious 
mind, the stars of religion and love break out in the 
5 blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driv- 
ing clouds and the maddened hurricane of his life. 
It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from 

• the consciousness of his own scepticism, and that he 
had bent his pride so far dow^n as to put his 

10 apostasy out to hire.* The paper left behind him, 
called '' Thoughts on Religion," is merely a set of 
excuses for not professing disbelief. He says of his 
sermons that he preached pamphlets: they have 
scarce a Christian characteristic; they might be 

ispreached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor 
of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. 
There is little or no cant — he is too great and too 
proud for that; and, in so far as the badness of his 
sermons goes, he is honest. But having put that 

20 cassock on, it poisoned him; he was strangled in 
his bands. He goes through life, tearing, like a 
man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the 
Arabian story, he is always looking out for the 
Fury, and knows that the night will come and the 

25 inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it 
was! what a lonely rage and long agony — what a 
vulture that tore the heart of that giant! f It is 

* " Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, 

but resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined 

30 to take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, he 

had a scruple of entering into the Church merely for support." — 

Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the Dean. 

t " Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles 
could scarce soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene; 



30 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

awful to think of the great sufiferings of this great 
man. Through life he always seems alone, some- 
how. Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakspeare 
otherwise. The giants must live apart. The kings 
can have no company. But this man sufifered so; 5 
and deserved so to suffer. One hardly reads any- 
where of such a pain. 

The " sseva indignatio " of which he spoke as * 
lacerating his heart, and which he dares to inscribe 
on his tombstone — as if the wretch who lay under 10 
that stone waiting God's judgment had a right to be 
angry — breaks out from him in a thousand pages 
of his writing, and tears and rends him. Against 
men in ofhce, he having been overthrown; against 
men in England, he having lost his chance of pre- 15 
ferment there, the furious exile never fails to rage 
and curse. Is it fair to call the famous " Drapier's 
Letters " patriotism? They are masterpieces of 
dreadful humour and invective: they are reasoned 
logically enough too, but the proposition is as 20 
monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. 
It is not that the grievance is so great, but there is 
his enemy — the assault is wonderful for its activity 
and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his 
hand, rushing on his enemies and felling them : one 25 
admires not the cause so much as the strength, the 
anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case 
with madmen, certain subjects provoke him, and 

but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is scarce 
possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them moreSO 
terror and austerity." — Orrery. 



SWIFT 31 

awaken his fits of wrath. Marriage is one of 
these; in a hundred passages in his writings he 
rages against it; rages against children; an object 
of constant satire, even more contemptible in his 

5 eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor curate with a 
large family. The idea of this luckless paternity 
never fails to bring down from him gibes and foul 
language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or 
Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, 

10 have written anything like the Dean's famous 
" Modest Proposal " for eating children? Not one 
of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, 
fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such 
softness, and enters the nursery with the tread and 

15 gaiety of an ogre.* "I have been assured," says 
he in the " Modest Proposal," '' by a very knowing 
American of my acquaintance in London, that a 
young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, 
a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, 

20 whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I 
make no doubt it will equally serve in a ragout" 
And taking up this pretty joke, as his way is, he 
argues it with perfect gravity and logic. He turns 
and twists this subject in a score of different ways; 

25 he hashes it; and he serves it up cold; and he 
garnishes it; and relishes it always. He describes 

*" London: April lotli, 1713. 

"Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill: I doubt he will not live; 

and she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She 

30 is so excessively fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave 

the Queen, but leave everything, to stick to what is so much the 

interest of the public, as well as her own. . . ." — Journal. 



32 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

the little animal as '' dropped from its dam," ad- 
vising that the mother should let it suck plentifully 
in the last month, so as to render it plump and fat 
for a good table! ''A child," says his Reverence, 
" will make two dishes at an entertainment for 5 
friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore 
or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish," and 
so on; and the subject being so delightful that he 
can't leave it, he proceeds to recommend, in place 
of venison for squires' tables, '' the bodies of young 10 
lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen or under 
twelve." Amiable humourist! laughing castigator 
of morals! There was a process well known and 
practised in the Dean's gay days; when a lout en- 
tered the coffee-house, the wags proceeded to what 15 
they called '' roasting " him. This is roasting a 
subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a native 
genius for it. As the " Almanach des Gourmands " 
says, " On nait rotisseur." 

And it was not merely by the sarcastic method 20 
that Swift exposed the unreasonableness of loving 
and having children. In " Gulliver," the folly of 
love and marriage is urged by graver arguments 
and advice. In the famous Lilliputian kingdom, 
Swift speaks with approval of the practice of in-25 
stantly removing children from their parents and 
educating them by the State; and amongst his 
favourite horses, a pair of foals are stated to be the 
very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would 
permit themselves. In fact, our great satirist was3o 
of opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, and 
illustrated the theory by his own practice and ex- 



SWIFT 33 

ample — God help him ! — which made him about the 
most wretched being in God's world.* 

The grave and logical conduct of an absurd 
proposition, as exemplified in the cannibal pro- 
Sposal just mentioned, is our author's constant 
method through all his works of humour. Given a 
country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and 
by the mere process of the logic, a thousand won- 
derful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of 

lothe calculation. Turning to the First Minister who 
waited behind him with a white staff near as tall as 
the mainmast of the Royal Sowreign, the King of 
Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing 
human grandeur is, as represented by such a con- 

istemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The Em- 
peror of Lilliput's features are strong and mascu- 
line " (what a surprising humour there is in this 
description!) — ''The Emperor's features," Gulliver 
says, " are strong and masculine, with an Austrian 

20 lip, an arched nose, his complexion olive, his coun- 
tenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, 
and his deportment majestic. He is taller by the 
breadth of my nail than any of his Court, which 
alone is enough to strike an awe into beholders." 

25 What a surprising humour there is in these de- 
scriptions! How noble^ the satire is here! how just 
and honest! How perfect the image! Mr. Macau- 
lay has quoted the charming lines of the poet where 
the king of the pigmies is measured by the same 

30 standard. We have all read in Milton of the spear 

* " My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head 
and an aching heart." — In May 1719. 



34 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



that was like "the mast of some great ammiral; 
but these images are surely likely to come to the 
comic poet originally. The subject is before him. 
He is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of 
it. The figure suggests itself naturally to him, and 5 
comes out of his subject, as in that wonderful pas- 
sage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by 
the eagle into the sea, and Gulliver having been re- 
ceived into the ship's cabin, he calls upon the crew 
to bring the box into the cabin, and put it on theio 
table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the 
box. It is the vcrCicity of the blunder which is so 
admirable. Had a man come from such a country 
as Brobdingnag, he would have blundered so. 

But the best stroke of humour, if there be a best 15 
in that abounding book, is that where Gulliver, in 
the unpronounceable country, describes his parting 
from his master the horse.* 

* Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful 
book is the description of the very old people in the " Voyage to 20 
Laputa." At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons who never die, 
called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to become acquainted 
with men who must have so much learning and experience, his 
colloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him. 

"He said: They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty 25 
years old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and de- 
jected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he 
learned from their own confession: for otherwise there not being 
above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few 
to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore 3° 
years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, 
they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but 
many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. 
They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, 
talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural aflfec- 35 
tion, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and 
impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects 
against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices 
of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the 



1 



SWIFT 3S 

" I took," he says, " a second leave of my mas- 
ter, but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss 
his hoof, he did me the honour to raise it gently to 
my mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have 

5 been censured for mentioning this last particular. 
Detractors are pleased to think it improbable that 
so illustrious a person should descend to give so 
great a mark of distinction to a creature so inferior 
as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some trav- 

loellers are to boast of extraordinary favours they 



former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; 
and whenever they see a funeral, they lament, and repine that others 
are gone to a harbour of rest, to which they themselves never can 
hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what 

15 they learned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even 
that is very imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of any fact, 
it is safer to depend on common tradition than upon their best 
recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those 
who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet 

20 with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities 
which abound in others. 

" If a Struldbrug happen to marry one of his own kind, the mar- 
riage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as 
soon as the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For the law 

25 thinks it a reasonable indulgence that those who are condemned, 
without any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the 
world, should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife. 

" As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they 
ore looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to 

30 their estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and 
the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that 
period they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit, 
they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they allowed 
to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for 

35 the decision of meers and bounds. 

" At ninety they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age 
no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get 
without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still 
continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they for- 

40 get the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, 
even of those who are their nearest friends and relations. For the 
same reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, be- 
cause their memory will not serve to carry them from the begin- 



36 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



have received. But if these censurers were better 
acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition 
of the Houyhnhnms they would soon change their 
opinion." 

The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial 5 
evidence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who 
is not ignorant how much he has been censured, the 
nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful 
exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete: 
it is truth topsy-turvy, entirely logical and absurd. lo 
^ As for the humour and conduct of this famous 

ning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived 
of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable. 

" The language of this country being always upon the flux, the 
Struldbrugs of one age do not vniderstand those of another; neither 15 
are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation 
(further than by a few general words) with their neighbours, the 
mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like 
foreigners in their own country. 

" This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I 20' 
can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the 
youngest not above two hundred years old, who were brought to 
me- at several times by some of my friends; but although they were 
told ' that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world,' they 
had not the least curiosity to ask me a question; only desired I 25 
would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance; which 
is a modest way of begging, to avoid the law, that strictly forbids it, 
because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a 
very scanty allowance. 

"They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one 30 
of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded 
very particularly; so that you may know their age by consulting 
the register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand 
years past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public dis- 
turbances. Cut the usual way of computing how old they are, is by 3 5 
asking them what kings or great persons they can remember, and 
then consulting history; for infallibly the last prince in their mind 
did not begin his reign after they were fourscore years old. 

" They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and tlie 
women more horrible than the men; besides the usual deformities 4^ 
in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in pro- 
portion to their number of years, which is not to be described; 
and among half-a-dozen, I soon distinguished w-hich was the eldest, 
although there was not above a century or two between them." — 
Gulliver's Travels, 45 



I 



SWIFT 37 

fable, I suppose there is no person who reads but 
must admire; as for the moral, I think it horrible, 
shameful, unmanly, blasphemous; and giant and 
great as this Dean is, I say we should hoot him. 
5 Some of this audience mayn't have read the last 
part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the ad- 
vice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about 
to marry, and say " Don't." When Gulliver first 
lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling 

lo wretches clamber up trees and assault him, and he 
describes himself as *' almost stifled with the filth 
which fell about him." The reader of the fourth 
part of " Gulliver's Travels " is like the hero him- 
self in this instance. It is Yahoo language: a mon- 

15 ster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations 
against mankind — tearing down all shreds of 
modesty, past all sense of manliness and shame; 
filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, 
obscene. 

20 And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the 
tendency of his creed — the fatal rocks towards 
which his logic desperately drifted. That last part 
of '' Gulliver " is only a consequence of what has 
gone before; and the worthlessness of all man- 

25 kind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the 
general vanity, the foolish pretension, the mock 
greatness, the pompous dulness, the mean aims, 
the base successes — all these were present to him; 
it was with the din of these curses of the world, 

soblasphemies against Heaven, shrieking in his ears, 
that he began to^ write his dreadful allegory — ot 
which the meaning is that man is utterly wicked, 



38 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

desperate, and imbecile, and his passions are so 
monstrous, and his boasted powers so mean, that he 
is and deserves to be the slave of brutes, and igno- 
rance is better than his vaunted reason. What had 
this man done? what secret remorse was rankling 5 
at his heart? what fever was boiling in him, that he 
should see all the world bloodshot? We view the 
world with our own eyes, each of us; and we make 
from within us the world we see. A weary heart 
gets no gladness out of sunshine; a selfish man is 10 
sceptical about friendship, as a man with no ear 
doesn't care for music. A frightful self-conscious- 
ness it must have been, which looked on mankind 
so darkly through those keen eyes of Swift. 

A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, 15 
who interrupted Archbishop King and Swift in a 
conversation which left the prelate in tears, and 
from which Swift rushed away with marks of strong 
terror and agitation in his countenance, upon which 
the Archbishop said to Delany, '' You have just 20 
met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the 
subject of his wretchedness you must never ask a 
question." * 

The most unhappy man on earth; — Miser rimus — 
what a character of him ! And at this time all the 25 
great wits of England had been at his feet. All 
Ireland had shouted after him, and worshipped him 
as a liberator, a saviour, the greatest Irish patriot 
and citizen. Dean Drapier Bickerstafif Gulliver — 

* This remarkable story came to Scott from an unnamed friend of 3^ 
Delany's widow. It has been supposed to confirm the conjecture 
about his natural relationship to Stella; but, even if correctly re- 
ported, is open to any number of interpretations. 



SWIFT 39 

the most famous statesmen and the greates't poets of 
his day had applauded him and done him homage; 
and at this time, writing over to BoHngbr,oke from 
Ireland, he says, *'It is time forme to have done with 
5 the world, and so I would if I could get into a bet- 
ter before I was called into the best, and not die 
here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.'' 

We have spoken about the men, and Swift's be- 
haviour to them; and now it behoves us not to for- 

loget that there are certain other persons in the crea- 
tion who had rather intimate relations with the 
great Dean.''' Two women whom he loved and in- 
jured are known by every reader of books so 
familiarly that if we had seen them, or if they had 

15 been relatives of our own, we scarcely could have 
known them better. Who hasn't in his mind an 
image of Stella? Who does not love her? Fair 
and tender creature: pure and affectionate heart! 

* The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those 

20of the famous Stella and Vanessa; but she had a story of her own 
to tell about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One may say that 
the book of Swift's Life opens at places kept by these blighted 
flowers ! Varina must have a paragraph. 

She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In 

25 1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a love- 
letter to her, beginning, " Impatience is the most inseparable quality 
of a lover." But absence made a great diflference in his feelings; 
so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. He writes again, a 
very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the offer in 

30 such a way that nobody could possibly accept it. 

After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, " I 
shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether 
your person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the 
first, and competency in the second, is all I ask for ! " 

35 The editors do not .ell us what became of Varina in life. One 
would' be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, and 
lived long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, 
■without any arrtere pensee of a sad character about the great 
Pean ! 



40 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



1 



Boots it to you, now that you have been at rest for 
a hundred and twenty years, not divided in deatli 1 
from the cold heart whicli caused yours, wliilst f 
it beat, such faithful pangs of love and grief 
— boots it to you now, that the whole world loves 5 
and deplores you? Scarce any man, I believe, ever 
thought of that grave, that did not cast a flower of 
pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle 
lady, so lovely, so loving, so unhappy! you have 
had countless champions; millions of manly hearts 10 
mourning for you. From generation to generation 
we take up the fond tradition of your beauty, we 
watch and follow your tragedy, your bright morn- 
ing love and purity, your constancy, your grief, 
your sweet martyrdom. We know your legend by 15 
heart. You are one of the saints of English story. 
And if Stella's love and innocence are charming 
to contemplate, I will say that, in spite of ill-usage, 
in spite of drawbacks, in spite of mysterious sep- 
aration and union, of hope delayed and sickened 20' 
heart — in the teeth of Vanessa, and that little 
episodical aberration which plunged Swift into such 
woeful pitfalls and quagmires of amorous per- 
plexity — in spite of the verdicts of most women, I 
believe, who, as far as my experience and conversa- 25 
tion go, generally take Vanessa's part in the con- 
troversy — in spite of the tears w^hich Swift caused 
Stella to shed, and the rocks and barriers which 
fate and temper interposed, and which prevented 
the pure course of that true love from running 30 
smoothly — the brightest part of Swift's story, the 
pure star in that dark and tempestuous life of 



SWIFT 41 

Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It has been 

• my business, professionally of course, to go through 
a deal of sentimental reading in my time, and to ac- 
quaint myself with love-making, as it has been de- 

5 scribed in various languages, and at various ages of 
the world; and I know of nothing more manly, 
more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some 
of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls " his 
little language " in his journal to Stella.* He writes 

10 to her night and morning often. He never sends 
away a letter to her but he begins a new one on the 
same day. He can't bear to let go her kind little 
hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of 
him, and longing for him far away in Dublin yon- 

15 der. He takes her letters from under his pillow and 
talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond 
epithets and pretty caresses — as he would to the 
sweet and artless creature who loved him. *' Stay,*' 
he writes one morning — it is the 14th of December 

20 1710 — '' Stay, I will answer some of your letter this 
morning in bed. Let me see. Come and appear, 
little letter! Here I am, says he, and what say you 
to Stella this morning fresh and fasting? And can 

* A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for 
25 his art, in expounding the symbols of the "Little Language." 

Usually, Stella is " M.D.," but sometimes her companion, Mrs. 

Dingley, is included in it. Swift is " Presto"; also P.D.F.R. We 

have "Good-night, M.D.; Night, M.D.; Little M.D.; Stellakins; 

Pretty Stella; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty M.D." Every now 
30 and then he breaks into rhyme, as — 

" I wish you both a merry new year, 
Roast-beef, mince-pies, and good strong beer, 
And me a share of your good cheer, - 
That I was there, as you were here, 
35 And you are a little saucy dear." 



42 ENGLISH HUMOWRISrS 

Stella read this writing without hurting her dear 
eyes?" he goes on, after more kind prattle and' 
fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly upon 
him then — the good angel of his life is with him 
and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung 5 
from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly 
that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate: but 
would she have changed it? I have heard a woman 
say that she would have taken Swift's cruelty to 
have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship lo 
for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her 
after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of hei 
grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and rever- 
ence that are indescribably touching; in contem- 
plation of her goodness his hard heart melts into 1 5 
pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into 
poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, 
before the angel whose life he had embittered, con- 
fesses his own wretchedness and unworthiness, and 
adores her with cries of remorse and love: — 20 

" When on my sickly couch I lay, 
Impatient both of night and day, 
And groaning in unmanly strains, 
, Called every power to ease my pains, 

Then Stella ran to my relief, 25 

With cheerful face and inward grief. 

And though by Heaven's severe decree 

She suffers hourly more than me. 

No cruel master could require 

From slaves employed for daily hire, 3° 

What Stella, by her friendship warmed, 

With vigour and delight performed. 

Now, with a soft and silent tread, 

Unheard she moves about my bed: 

My sinking spirits now supplies 35 

With cordials in her hands and eyes. 



SWIFT 43 

Best pattern of true friends ! beware 
You pay too dearly for your care 
If, while your tenderness secures 
My life, it must endanger yours: 
5 For such a fool was never found 

Who pulled a palace to the ground. 
Only to have the ruins made 
Materials for a house decayed." 

One little triumph Stella had in her life — one 
lodear little piece of injustice was performed in her 
favour, for which I confess, for my part, I can't help 
thanking fate and the Dean. That other person was 
sacrificed to her — that— that young woman, who 
lived five doors from Doctor Swift's lodgings in 
15 Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love 
to him in such an outrageous manner — Vanessa 
was thrown over. 

Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply 
to those he wrote to her.* He kept Bolingbroke's, 

20 * The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the 

evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-28: — 

" She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen; 

but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as 

one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in 
25 London— only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, 

and every feature of her face in perfection. 

"... Properly speaking " — he goes on, with a calmness which, 

under the circumstances, is terrible — " she has been dying six 

months ! . . . 
-^O *' Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, 

or who more improved them by reading and conversation. . . . All 

of us who had the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, 

that in an afternoon's or evening's conversation she never failed 

before we parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the 
35 company. Some of us have written down several of her sayings, 

or what the French nail bons mots, wherein she excelled beyond 

belief." 
The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper, called 

" Bon Mots de Stella," scarcely bear out this last part of the 
40 panegyric. But the following prove her wit: — 

" A gentleman who had been very silly and pert in her company, 



44 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

and Pope's, and Harley's, and Peterborough's: but 
Stella " very carefully," the Lives say, kept Swift's. 
Of course: that is the way of the world: and so 
we cannot tell what her style was, or of what sort 
were the little letters which the Doctor placed there 5 
at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow 
of a morning. But in Letter IV. of that famous 
collection he describes his lodging in Bury Street, 
where he has the first-floor, a dining-room and 
bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week; and in Let- 10 
ter VL he says " he has visited a lady just come to 
town," whose name somehow is not mentioned; 
and in Letter VIIL he enters a query of Stella's — 
" What do you mean * that boards near me, that 1 
dine with now and then.'? What the deuce! You 15 
know whom I have dined with every day since I left 
you, better than I do." Of course she does. Of 
course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she 
means. But in a few letters more it turns out that 



at last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately 20 
dead. A bishop sitting by comforted him— that he should be easy, 
because ' the child was gone to heaven.' ' No, my Lord,' said she; 
* that is it which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see 
his child there.' 

"When she was extremely ill, her physician said, 'Madam, you 25 
are near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to get you 
up again.' She answered, ' Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath 
before I get up to the top.' 

" A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who aflfected smart- 
ness and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his30 
nails came to be so dirty. He was at a loss; but she solved the 
difficulty by saying, ' The Doctor's nails grew dirty by scratching 
himself.' 

"A Quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad 
brim, and a label of paper about its neck. ' What is that ? '—said 35 
she — ' my apothecary's son ! ' The ridiculous resemblance, and the 
suddenness of the question, set us all a-laughing."— 5"wt//'.y IVorks, 
Scott's ed. vol. ix. 295-96. 



SWIFT 45 

the Doctor has been to dine " gravely " with a Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh: then that he has been to " his neigh- 
bour " : then that he has been unwell, and means to 
dine for the whole week with his neighbour! Stella 
5 was quite right in her previsions. She saw from the 
very first hint what was going to happen; and 
scented Vanessa in the air.* The rival is at the 
Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are reading to- 
gether, and drinking tea together, and going to 

lo prayers together, and learning Latin together, and 
conjugating amo, amas, amavi together. The " lit- 
tle language " is over for poor Stella. By the rule 
of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't 
mnavi come after amo and amas? 

15 The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa f you may 
peruse in Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and 
in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses 
and letters to him; she adores him, implores him, 
admires him, thinks him something god-like, and 

20 only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet. if As they 

* " I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I loitered 
at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and 
out of mere listlessness dine there very often; so I did to-day." — 
Journal to Stella. 

25 Mrs. Vanhomrigh, " Vanessa's " mother, was the widow of a 
Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in King William's 
time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a house in 
Bury Street, St. James's— a street made notable by such residents 
as Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe. 

30 t " Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her 
by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond 
of dress; impatient to be admirdd; very romantic in her turn of 
mind; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, 
gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, 

35 but far from being either beautiful or genteel; . . . happy in the 
thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and 
intending to be his wife."— LorJ Orrery. 
X " You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you 



4^ ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

are bringing him home from church, those divine 
feet of Doctor Swift's are found pretty often in 
Vanessa's parlour. He Hkes to be admired and 
adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman 
of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a 5 
fortune too. He sees her every day; he does not 
tell Stella about the business; until the impetuous 
Vanessa becomes too fond of him, until the Doctor 
is quite frightened by the young woman's ardour, 
and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to 10 
marry neither of them — that I believe was the truth; 
but if he had not married Stella, Vanessa would 
have had him in spite of himself. 'When he went 
back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain 
in her isle, pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he 15 
protested, he vowed, he soothed, and bullied; the 
news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last 



could. You had better have said, as often as you can get the better 
of your inclinations so much; or as often as you remember there 
was such a one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you 20 
do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to 
describe what I have suffered since I saw you last: I am sure I 
could have borne the rack much better than those killing words of 
yours. Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you 
more; but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long; for 25 
there is something in human nature that prompts one so to find 
relief in this world I must give way to it, and beg you would see 
me, and speak kindly to me; for I am sure you'd not condemn any 
one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. The reason 
I write to you is, because I cannot tell it to you should I see you; 30 
for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is 
something in your looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh ! 
that you may have but so much regard for me left that this com- 
plaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can; 
did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to 35 
forgive me; and believe I cannot help telling you this and live." — 
Vanessa. (M. 1714.) 



SWIFT 47 

came to her, and it killed her — she died of that 
passion.* 

* " If we consider Swift's behaviour, so far only as it relates to 
women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than 
5 as whole figures." — Orrery. 

" You would have smiled to have found his house a constant 
seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning 
till night." — Orrery. 

A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the 

lO materials on which to found the following interesting passage about 
Vanessa — after she had retired to cherish her passion in retreat: — 

" Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, 
is built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its external 
appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own account) 

15 showed the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh's gardener, and used to work with his father in the 
garden when a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; 
and his account of her corresponded with the usual description of 
her person, especially as to her embonpoint. He said she went sel- 

20 dom abroad, and saw little company: her constant amusement was 
reading, or walking in the garden. . . . She avoided company, and 
was always melancholy, save when Dean Swift was there, and then 
she seemed happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree 
crowded with laurels. The old man said that when Miss Van- 

25 homrigh expected the Dean she always planted with her own hand 
a laurel or two against his arrival. He showed her favourite seat, 
still called ' Vanessa's bower.' 'Three or four trees and some laurels 
indicate the spot. . . . There were two seats and a rude table within 
the bower, the opening of which commanded a view of the Liffey. 

30. . . In this sequestered spot, according to the old gardener's ac- 
count, the Dean and Vanessa used often to sit, with books and 
writing-materials on the table before them." — Scott's Swift, vol. i. 
pp. 246-7. 

"... But Miss Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which 

35 she found herself, determined on bringing to a crisis those expecta- 
tions of a tmion with the object of her afifections — to the hope of 
which she had clung amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards 
her. The most probable bar was his undefined connection with 
Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known to her, 

4c had, doubtless, long excited her secret jealousy, although only a 
single hint to that purpose is to be found in their correspondence, 
and that so early as 1713, when she writes to him — then in Ireland — 
* If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, 
except 'tis what is inconsistent with mine.' Her silence and patience 

45 under this state of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must 
have been partly owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, 
to the weak state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, 
seemed to announce speedy dissolution. At length, however, 



48 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift 
had written beautifully regarding her, '' That 
doesn't surprise me/' said Mrs. Stella, " for we all 
know the Dean could write beautifully about a 
broomstick." A woman — a true woman! Would 5 
you have had one of them forgive the other? 

In a note in his biography, Scott says that his 
friend Doctor Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's 
hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are 
written in the Dean's hand, the words: "Only a 10 
zvommi's hair." An instance, says Scott, of the 
Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of 
cynical indifference. 

See the various notions of critics! Do those 
words indicate indifference or an attempt to hide 1 5 
feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words 
more pathetic? Only a woman's hair; only love, 

Vanessa's impatience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive 
step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the 
nature of that connection. Stella, in reply, informed her of her20 
marriage with the Dean; and full of the highest resentment against 
Swift for having given another female such a right in him as Miss 
Vanhomrigh's inquiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter 
of interrogation, and without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, re- 
tired to the house of Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows 25 
the consequence. Swift, in one of those paroxysms of fury to which 
he was liable, both from temper and disease, rode instantly to 
'Marley Abbey. As he entered the apartment, the sternness of his 
countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the fiercer 
passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she30 
could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered 
by flinging a letter on the table, and, instantly leaving the house, 
mounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened 
the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her 
death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the 35 
delayed yet cherished hopes which "had so long sickened her heart, 
and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had 
indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is un- 
certain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks." 
^Scott. 40 



SWIFT 49 

only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty; only 
the tenderest heart in the world stricken and 
wounded, and passed away now out of reach of 
pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless 
5 desertion : — only that lock of hair left ; and memory 
and remorse, for the guilty lonely wretch, shudder- 
ing over the grave of his victim.* 

And yet to have had so much love, he must have 
given some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and 

lo tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up 
in the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fit- 
fully to one or two whom he took in there. But it 
was not good to visit that place. People did not re- 
main .there long, and suffered for having been 

15 there. t He shrank away from all affection sooner 
or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, 
and away from him. He had not heart enough to 
see them die. He broke from his fastest friend., 
Sheridan; he slunk away from his fondest admirer, 

20 Pope. His laugh jars on one's ear after seven 
score years. He was always alone — alone and 
gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's 
sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that 



* Thackeray wrote to Hayward, who had said something of this 

25 lecture when originally delivered, and had apparently misunderstood 

this passage, that the phrase quoted seemed to him to be " the most 

affecting words I ever heard, indicating the truest love, passion, and 

remorse." — Hayward Correspondence, i. 119. 

t " M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne 

30 compagnie. II n'a pas, a la verite, la gaite du premier, mais il a 

toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon gout qui manquent a 

notre cure de Meudon. Ses vers sont d'un goiit singulier, et presque 

inimitable; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en prose; 

mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans son 

35 pays."— Voltaire; Lettres sur les Anglais. Lettre XX. 



50 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

went, silence and utter night closed over him. An 
immense genius: an awful downfall and ruin. So 
great a man he seems to me, that thinking of him 
is like thinking of an empire falling. We have 
other great names to mention — none I think, how- 
ever, so great or so gloomy. 



Comvcvc anb HbMson 

A great number of years ago, before the passing 
of the Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a 
certain debating club, called the "Union"; and I 
remember that there was a tradition amongst the 
5 undergraduates who frequented that renowned 
school of oratory, that the great leaders of the Op- 
position and Government had their eyes upon the 
University Debating Club, and that if a man dis- 
tinguished himself there he ran some chance of be- 

loing returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's 
nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson of Trin- 
ity, would rise in their might, and draping them- 
selves in their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or 
hurl defiance at priests and kings, with the majesty 

15 of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau, fancying all the while 
that the great nobleman's emissary was listening to 
the debate from the back benches, where he was 
sitting with the family seat in his pocket. Indeed, 
the legend said that one or two young Cambridge 

20 men, orators of the " Union," were actually caught 
up thence, and carried down to Cornwall or Old 
Sarum, and so into Parliament. And many a young 
fellow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum, 
to hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of 

25 the parliamentary chariot. 

51 



, 52 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of 
Peers and Members of Parhament in Anne's and 
George's time? Were they all in the army, or hunt- 
ing in the country, or boxing the watch? How 
was it that the young gentlemen from the Univer- 5 
sity got such a prodigious number of places? A 
lad composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch 
or Trinity, in which the death of a great personage 
was bemoaned, the French King assailed, the 
Dutch or Prince Eugene complimented, or the re- lo 
verse; and the party in power was presently to pro- 
vide for the young poet; and a commissionershif>, 
or a post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an 
Embassy, or a clerkship in the Treasury, came into 
the bard's possession. A wonderful fruit-bearing i5 j 
rod was that of Busby's. What have men of letters ' 
got in our time? Think, not only of Swift, a king 
fit to rule in any time or empire — but Addison, 
Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John 
Dennis, and many others, who got public employ- 20 
ment, and pretty little pickings out of the public 
purse.* The wits of whose names we shall treat in 
this lecture and two following, all (save one) 

* The following is a conspectus of them : — 

Addison.— Commissioner of Appeals; Under-Secretary of State; 25 
Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; 
Keeper of the Records in Ireland; Lord of Trade; 
and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, suc- 
cessively. 

Steele.— Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal 30 
Stables at Hampton Court; and Governor of the 
Royal Company of Comedians; Commissioner of 
" Forfeited Estates in Scotland." 

Prior.— Secretary of the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the 

Bed-chamber to King William; Secretary to the 35 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 53 

touched the King's coin, and had, at some period 
of their Hves, a happy quarter-day coming round 
for them. 

They all began at school or college in the regular 
5 way, producing panegyrics upon public characters, 
what were called odes upon public events, battles, 
sieges. Court marriages and deaths, in which the 
gods of Olympus and the tragic muse were fatigued 
with invocations, according to the fashion of the 

lo time in France and in England. '' Aid us, Mars, 
Bacchus, Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, 
singing of William or Marlborough. " Accourez, 
chastes nymphes du Permesse," says Boileau, cele- 
brating the Grand Monarch. '' Des sons que ma 

15 lyre enfante ces arbres sont rejouis; marquez-en 
bien la cadence; et vous, vents, faites silence! je 
vais parler de Louis!" Schoolboys' themes and 
foundation exercises are the only relics left now 
of this scholastic fashion. The Olympians are left 

20 quite ilndisturbed in their mountain. What man 
of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country 
newspaper, would now think of writing a congratu- 

Embassy in France; Under-Secretary of State; 
Ambassador to France. 
25 TiCKELL. — Under-Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lords Justices 
of Ireland. 

CoNGREViE. — Commissioner for licensing Hackney-Coaches; Com- 
missioner for Wine Licences; place in the Pipe 
Office; post in the Custom House; Secretary of 
30 Jamaica. 

Gay. — Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to 
Hanover). 

John Dennis.— A place in the Custom House. 

" En Angleterre . . . les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici."— 
35 Voltaire: Lettres sur les Anglais. Lettre XX. 



54 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

latory ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or 
the marriage of a nobleman? In the past century 
the young gentlemen of the Universities all exer- 
cised themselves at these queer compositions; and 
some got fame, and some gained patrons and places 5 
for life, and many more took nothing by these ef- 
forts of what they were pleased to call their muses. 

William Congreve's * Pindaric Odes are still to 
be found in " Johnson's Poets," that now unfre- 
quented poets'-corner, in which so many forgotten lo 
bigwigs have a niche; but though he was also 
voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of any 
day, it was Congreve's wit and humour which hrst 
recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is re- 
corded that his first play, the ''Old Bachelor," ^ 5 
brought our author to the notice of that great 
patron of English muses, Charles Montague, Lord 
Halifax — who, being desirous to place so eminent 
a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity, instantly 
made him one of the Commissioners for licensing 20 
hackney-coaches, bestowed on him soon after a 
place in the Pipe Ofhce, and likewise a post in the 
Custom House of the value of £6oo.t 

A commissionership of hackney-coaches — a post 
in the Custom House — a place in the Pipe Office, 25 
and all for writing a comedy! Doesn't it sound 
Hke a fable, that place in the Pipe Office? % " Ah, 

* He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of 
Richard Congreve, Esquire, of Congreve and Stretton in Stafford- 
shire—a very ancient family. 30 

t The Old Bachelor u'as produced January 1693. Congreve was 
made Commissioner of Hackney-Coaches in 1695. 

X " Pipe.— Fj>a, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the 
great roll. 



CONG RE VE AND ADDISON 55 

riieureux temps que celui de ces fables ! " Men of 
letters there still be: but I doubt whether any Pipe 
Offices are left. The public has smoked them long 
ago. 
5 Words, like men, pass current for a while with 
the public, and, being known everywhere abroad, 
at length take their places in society; so even the 
most secluded and refined ladies here present will 
have heard the phrase from their sons or brothers 

10 at school, and will permit me to call William Con- 
greve, Esquire, the most eminent literary " swell " 
of his age. In my copy of " Johnson's Lives " Con- 
greve's wig is the tallest, and put on with the jaun- 
tiest air of all the laurelled worthies. " I am the 

15 great Mr. Congreve," he seems to say, looking out 
from his voluminous curls. People called him the 
great Mr. Congreve.* From the beginning of his 
career until the end everybody admired him. Hav- 

" Pipe Office is an office in which a person called the Clerk of the 
20 Pipe makes out leases of Crown lands, by warrant from the Lord 
Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. 

" Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c."— 
Rees: Cyclopced. Art. Pipe. 
25 " Pipe Office. — Spelman thinks so called, because the papers were 
kept in a large pipe or cask. 

" ' These be at last brought into that office of her Majesty's 
Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the pipe . . . because 
the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers small 
30 pipes or quills.'— Bacon : The Office of Alienations." 

[We are indebted to Richardson's Dictionary for this fragment of 
erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on these 
points — by experience.] 

* " It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him 
35 in the least; nor was he ever removed from any post that was 
given to him, except to a better. His place in the Custom House, 
and his office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have brought 
him in upwards of twelve hundred a year." — Biog. Brit. Art. 
Congreve. 



56 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



1 



ing got his education in Ireland, at the same school 
and college with Swift, he came to live in the Mid 
die Temple, London, where he luckily bestowed no 
attention to the law; but splendidly frequented the 
coffee-houses and theatres, and appeared in the 5 
side-box, the tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, bril- 
liant, beautiful, and victorious from the first. 
Everybody acknowledged the young chieftain. The 
great Mr. Dryden * declared that he was equal to 
Shakspeare, and bequeathed to him his own un-io 
disputed poetical crown, and writes of him : '' Mr. 

* Dryden addressed his " twelfth epistle " to " My dear friend, 
Mr. Congreve," on his comedy called the Double Dealer, in which he 
says : — 

" Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please; 15 

Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. 
In differing talents both adorned their age: 
One for the study, t'other for the stage. 
But both to Congreve justly shall submit. 

One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit. 20 

In him all beauties of this age we see," &c. &c. 

The Double Dealer, however, was not so palpable a hit as the Old 
Bachelor, but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having 
fallen foul of it, our " Swell " applied the scourge to that pre- 
sumptuous body, in the "Epistle Dedicatory" to the "Right Hon-2< 
curable Charles Montague." 

" I was conscious," said he, " where a true critic mignt have put 
me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack . . . but I 
have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer." 
He goes on— 30 

" But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all 
the false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the 
ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it; for I declare, I 
would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the 
fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women 35 
vicious and affected. How can I help it ? It is the business of a 
pomic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind. ... I 
should be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to 
those ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in 
a comedy, than to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting their 4^ 
blood," 



CONG REV E AND ADDISQN 5/ 

Congreve has done me the favour to review the 
'^neis ' and compare my version with the original. 
I shall never be ashamed to own that this excellent 
young man has showed me many faults which I 
5 have endeavoured to correct." 

The " excellent young man " was but three or 
four and twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke 
of him: the greatest literary chief in England, the 
veteran field-marshal of letters, himself the marked 

loman of all Europe, and the centre of a^school of 
wits who daily gathered round his chair and to- 
bacco-pipe at Will's. Pope dedicated his '' Iliad '' 
to him;* Swift, Addison, Steele, all acknowledge 
Congreve's rank, and lavish compliments upon him. 

15 Voltaire went to wait upon him as on one of the Rep- 
resentatives of Literature ; and the man who scarce 
praises any other living person — who flung abuse 
at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison — the 
Grub Street Timon, old John Dennis,t was hat in 

20 hand to Mr. Congreve; and said that when he re- 
tired from the stage. Comedy went with him. 

* " Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, 
let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the 
most valuable men as well as finest writers of my age and country— 

25 one who has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an 
undertaking it is to do justice to Homer— and one who, I am sure, 
seriously rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, 
therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire 
to dedicate it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing 

30 together in this manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of— 
A. FoTE."— Postscript to Translation of the Iliad of Homer, March 25, 
1720. 

t " When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he 
said he had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a 

35 particular friendship for our author, and generously took him under 
his protection in his high authoritative manner." — Thos. Davies; 
Dramatic Miscellanies. 



55 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was 
admired in the drawing-rooms as well as the coffee- 
houses; as much beloved in the side-box as on the 
stage. He loved, and concjuered, and jilted the 
beautiful Bracegirdle,* the heroine of all his plays, 5 
the favourite of all the town of her day; and the 
Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's daughter, 
had such an admiration of him, that when he died 
she had an ivory figure made to imitate him,t and 
a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just 10 
as the great Congreve's gouty feet were dressed in 
his great lifetime. He saved some money by his 
Pipe office, and his Custom House office, and his 
Hackney-Coach office, and nobly left it,J not to 

* " Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, 15 
and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his 
acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then 
quitted that house. The Duchess showed me a diamond necklace 
(which Lady Di used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand 
pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. 20 
How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. 
Bracegirdle." — Dr. Young. Spcncc's Anecdotes. 

t " A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was sup- 
posed to bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she 
spoke to it." — Thos. Davies: Dramatic Miscellanies. 25 

t The sum Congreve left Mrs. Bracegirdle was £200, as is said in 
the Dramatic Miscellanies of Tom Davies; where are some particu- 
lars about this charming actress and beautiful woman. 

She had a " lively aspect," says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, 
and " such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, 30 
as inspired everybody with desire." " Scarce an audience saw her 
that were not half of them her lovers." 

Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. 
" In Tamerlane, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of 
Axalla . . .; Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to 35 
her Angelica, in Love for Love ; in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the 
Mourning Bride; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the 
Way of the World. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I 
believe, not very distant from the real character of Congreve." — 
Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii. 1784. 40 

She retired from the stage when Mrs, Oldfield began to be the 



CONG REV E AND ADDISON 59 

Bracegirdle, who wanted it, but to the Duchess of 
Marlborough, who didn't.* 

How can I introduce to you that merry and 
shameless Comic Muse who won him such a repu- 
Station? Nell Gwynn's servant fought the other 
footman for having called his mistress a bad name; 
and in like manner, and with pretty little epithets, 
Jeremy Collier attacked that godless reckless Jeze- 
bel, the English comedy of his time, and called her 
lowhat Nell Gwynn's man's fellow-servants called 
Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of the 
theatre, Dryden, Congreve,t and others, defended 

public favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her 
age. 

15 * Johnson calls his legacy the "accumulation of attentive parsi- 
mony, which," 'he continues, " though to her (the Duchess) super- 
fluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient 
family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence 
of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress."— Lwf.y of the 

^opoets. 

t He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called Amendments of Mr. 
Collier's False and Imperfect Citations, &c. A specimen or two are 
subjoined: — 
" The greater part of these examples which he has produced are 

25 only demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his 
utterance,. and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath. 

" Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine 
signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he 
possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own 

•5*-' blasphemies. 

" If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is be- 
cause I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures. ... I will 
only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I think' 
he shall deserve it. 

35 " The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour 
critic." 

" Congreve," says Doctor Johnson, " a very young man, elated 
with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence 
and security. . . . The dispute was protracted through ten years; 

4^ but at last comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the 
reward of his labours in the reformation of the theatre." — Life of 
Congreve. 



Co ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

themselves with the same success, and for the same 
cause which set Nell's lacquey fighting. She was a 
disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French bag- 
gage, that Comic Muse. She came over from the 
Continent with Charles (who chose many more of 5 
his female friends there) at the Restoration — a wild 
dishevelled Lais, with eyes bright with wit and wine 
— a saucy Court-favourite that sat at the King's 
knees, and laughed in his face, and when she 
showed her bold cheeks at her chariot-window, had lo 
some of the noblest and most famous people of the 
land bowing round her wheel. She was kind and 
popular enough, that daring Comedy, that auda- 
cious poor Nell: she was gay and generous, kind, 
frank, as such people can afford to be: and the men 15 
who lived with her and laughed with her, took her 
pay and drank her wine, turned out when the Puri- 
tans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the 
jade was indefensible, and it is pretty certain her 
servants knew it. 20 

There is life and death going on in everything: 
truth and lies always at battle. Pleasure i& always 
warring against self-restraint. Doubt is always 
crying Psha! and sneering. A man in life, a hu- 
mourist, in writing about life, sways over to one 25 
principle or the other, and laughs with the rever- 
ence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or 
laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell 
you that dancing was a serious business to Harle- 
quin? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays 3" 
over before speaking of him ; and my feelings were 
rather like those, which I dare say most of us here 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 6 1 

have bad, at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house 
and the relics of an orgy; a dried wine-jar or two, 
a charred supper-table, the breast of a dancing-girl 
pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a 

5 jester: a perfect stihness round about, as the 
cicerone twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines 
calmly over the ruin. The Congreve Muse is dead, 
and her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at 
the skeleton, and wonder at the life which once re- 

10 veiled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and 
muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, pas- 
sion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl once 
fermented. We think of the glances that allured, 
the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone 

15 in those vacant sockets; and of lips whispering 
love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once cov- 
ered yon ghastly yellow framework. They used to 
call those teeth pearls once. See, there's the cup she 
drank from, the gold chain she wore on her neck, 

2o the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her 
looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. 
Instead of a feast we find a gravestone, and in place 
of a mistress, a few bones! 

Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your 

25 ears and looking at people dancing. What does it 
mean? the measures, the grimaces, the bowing, 
shuffling, and retreating, the cavalier sail advancing 
upon those ladies — those ladies and men twirling 
round at the end in a mad galop, after which every- 

30 body bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. With- 
out the music we can't understand that comic dance 
of the last century — its strange gravity and gaiety, 



62 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of its 
own quite unlike life; a sort of moral of its own 
quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen mys- 
tery, symbolising a Pagan doctrine; protesting — 
as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at 5 
their theatre and laughing at their games; as Sal- 
lust and his friends, and their mistresses protested, 
crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands — 
against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure-hating doc- 
trine whose gaunt disciples, lately passed over frornio 
the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, were for 
breaking the fair images of Venus and flinging the 
altars of Bacchus down. 

I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of 
Pagan delights, and mysteries not permitted except 1 5 
among heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that 
ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried 
their secret signs and rites from temple to temple. 
When the libertine hero carries ofif the beauty in the 
play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for having 20 
the young wife: in the ballad, when the poet bids 
his mistress to gather roses while she may, and 
warns her that old Time is still a-flying: in the 
ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phillis under 
the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and leers 25 
at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, 
who is opportunely asleep; and when seduced by 
the invitations of the rosy youth she comes forward 
to the footlights, and they perform on each other's 
tiptoes that pas which you all know, and which is 3o 
only interrupted by old grandpapa awaking from 
his doze at the pasteboard chalet (whither he re- 



CONG REV E AND ADDISON 63 

turns to take another nap in case the young people 
get an encore) : when Harlequin, splendid in 
youth, strength, and agility, arrayed in gold and a 
thousand colours, springs over the heads of count- 

5 less perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered 
giants, and, dauntless and splendid, dances danger 
down: when Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, 
breaks every law and laughs at it with odious 
triumph, outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, 

10 knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the 
hangman, — don't you see in the comedy, in the 

■,song, in the dance, in the ragged little Punch's pup- 
pet-show — the Pagan protest? Doesn't it seem as 
if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? Look 

15 how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands 
and whisper! Sings the chorus — ''There is noth- 
ing like love, there is nothing like youth, there is 
nothing like beauty of your springtime. Look! 
how old age tries to meddle with merry sport! Beat 

20 him with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard! 
There is nothing like youth, there is nothing like 
beauty, there is nothing like strength. Strength 
and valour win beauty and youth. Be brave and 
conquer. Be young and happy. Enjoy, enjoy, en- 

25 joy! Would you know the Segreto per esscr fclice? 
Here it Is, in a smiling mistress and a cup of Faler- 
nian." As the boy tosses the cup and sings his 
song — hark! what is that chaunt coming nearer 
and nearer? What is that dirge which will disturb 

30 us? The lights of the festival burn dim — the cheeks 
turn pale — the voice quavers — and the cup drops 



64 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

on the floor. Who's there? Death and Fate are 
at the gate, and they will come in. 

Congreve's comic feast flares with hghts, and 
round the table, emptying their flaming bowls of 
drink, and exchanging the wildest jests and 5 
ribaldry, sit men and women, waited on by rascally 
valets and attendants as dissolute as their mis- 
tresses — perhaps the very worst company in the 
world. There doesn't seem to be a pretence of 
morals. At the head of the table sits Mirabel or 10 
Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited 
on by English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). 
Their calling is to be irresistible, and to conquer 
everywhere. Like the heroes of the chivalry story, 
whose long-winded loves and combats they were^S 
sending out of fashion, they are always splendid 
and triumphant — overcome all dangers, vanquish 
all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, 
husbands, usurers, are the foes these champions 
contend with. They are merciless in old age, in- 20 
variably, and an old man plays the part in the 
dramas which the wicked enchanter or the great 
blundering giant performs in the chivalry tales, who 
threatens and grumbles and resists — a huge stupid 
obstacle always overcome by the knight. It is an 25 
old man with a money-box: Sir Belmour his son 
or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. 
It is an old man with a young wife whom he locks 
up: Sir Mirabel robs him of his wife, trips up his 
gouty old heels and leaves the old hunks. The old 3^ 
fool, what business has he to hoard his money, or 
to lock up blushing eighteen? Money is for youth, 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 65 

love is for youth, away with the old people. When 
Millamant is sixty, having of course divorced the 
first Lady Millamant, and married his friend Dori- 
court's granddaughter out of the nursery — it will 
5 be his turn; and young Belmour will make a fool of 
him. All this pretty morality you have in the come- 
dies of William Congreve, Esquire. They are full 
of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes 
with great humour; but ah! it's a weary feast, that 
10 banquet of wit where no love is. It palls very 
soon; sad indigestions follow it and lonely blank 
headaches in the morning. 

I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid 

Congreve's plays * — which are undeniably bright, 

« 

je * The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in Love for Love 
is a splendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner: — 

" Scandal. And have you given your master a hint of their plot 
upon him ? 

"Jeremy. Yes, sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for 
CO Angelica. 

" Scandal. It may make us sport. 
" Foresight. Mercy on us ! 

" Valentine. Husht — interrupt me not — I'll w^hisper predictions to 
thee, and thou shalt prophesie; — I am truth, and can teach thy 
-5 tongue a new trick, — I have told thee what's passed — now I'll tell 
what's to come:— Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow ? 
Answer me not — for I will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive 
thro' craft, and fools thro' fortune: and honesty will go as it did, 
frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to- 
30 morrow. 

" Scandal. Ask him, Mr. Foresight. 
" Foresight. Pray what will be done at Court ? 
" Valentine. Scandal will tell ypu;— I am truth, I never come 
there. 
35 " Foresight. In the city ? 

" Valentine. Oh, prayers ,will be said in empty churches at the 
usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters 
as if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go 
methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and 
40 the horn'd herd buzz in the Exchange at tv/o. Husbands and wives 
will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy 



66 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

witty, and daring — any more than I could ask you 
to hear the dialogue of a witty bargeman and a 
brilliant fishwoman exchanging compliments at 

the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And 
the cropt 'prentice that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, 5 
may, ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two ! 
things, that you will see very strange; which are, wanton wives 
with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their 
necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you 
look suspiciously. Are you a husband ? lO 

" Foresight. I am married. 

" Valentine. Poor creature !' Is your wife of Covent-garden 
Parish ? 

"Foresight. No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

"Valentine. Alas, poor man ! his eyes are sunk, and his hands 15 
shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray for 
a metamorphosis — change thy shape, and shake off age; get thee 
Medea's kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous 
hands, and chine of steel, and Atlas' shoulders. Let Taliacotius 
trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals to 20 
stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha i 
That a man should have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the 
pidgeons ought rather to be laid to his feet ! Ha, ha, ha ! 

" Foresight. His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scnndal. 

" Scandal. I believe it is a spring-tide. 25 

"Foresight. Very likely — truly; you understand these matters. 
Mr. Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these 
things he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hiero- 
glyphical. 

" Valentitte. Oh ! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes 30 
so long ? 

" Jeremy. She's here, sir. 

" Mrs. Foresight. Now, sister ! 

" Mrs. Frail. O Lord ! what must I say ? 

" Scandal. Humour him, madam, by all means. 35 

" Valentine. Where is she ? Oh ! I see her: she comes, like 
Riches, Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and 
abandoned wretch. Oh — v/elcome, welcome ! 

" Mjs. Frail. How d'ye, sir ? Can I serve you ? 

" Valentine. Hark'ee — I have a secret to tell you. Endymion and 40 
the moon shall meet us on MouAf Lattnos, and we'll be married in 
the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch 
into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give 
her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and 
Argus's hundred eyes be shut— ha ! Nobody shall know, but 45 
Jeremy. 

"Mrs. Frail. No, no; we'll keep it secret; it shall be done 
presently. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 67 

Billingsgate; but some of his verses— they were 
amongst the most famous lyrics of the time, and 
pronounced equal to Horace by his contemporaries 

" Valentine. The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither — closer — 
5 that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica 
is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one 
another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may 
play my part; for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and 
white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one 
10 another's faces 'till we have done something to be ashamed of, and 
then we'll blush once for all. . . . 

" Enter Tattle. 

" Tattle. Do you know me, Valentine ? 
" Valentine. You ! — who are you ? No, I hope not. 
15 " Tattle. I am Jack Tattle, your friend. 

" Valentine. My friend ! What to do ? I am no married man, 
and thou canst not lye with my wife; I am very poor, and thou 
canst not borrow money of me. Then, what employment have I for 
a friend ? 
-O " Tattle. Ha ! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with 
a secret. 
" Angelica. Do you know me, Valentine ? 
" Valentine. Oh, very well. 
" Angelica. Who am I ? 
25 " Valentine. You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty 
when it grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven 
in a pond; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white — 
a sheet of spotless paper — when you first are born; but you are to 
be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for 
30 I loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange 
thi: g: I found out what a woman was good for. 
" Tattle. Ay ! pr'ythee, what's that ? 
" Valentine. Why, to keep a secret. 
" Tattle. O Lord ! 
35 " Valentine. Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she 
should tell, yet she is not to be believed. 
" Tattle. Hah ! Good again, faith. 

" Valentine. I would have musick. Sing me the song that I 
like."— Congreve: Love for Love. 
40 There is a Mrs. Nickle'jy, of the year 1700, in Congreve's comedy 
of The Double Dealer, in whose character the author introduces some 
wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the gal- 
lants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any 
of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve. 
45 " Lady Plyant. Oh ! reflect upon the horror of your conduct I 



68 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS ^^ 

— may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of 
his daring manner, his magnificence in coniphment, 
and his pohshed sarcasm. He writes as if he was 
so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor 

Offering to pervert me " [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing e 
the lady for her daughter's hand, not for her own] — " perverting me 
from the road of virtue, in w^hich I have trod thus long, and never 
made one trip — not one faux pas. Oh, consider it: what would you 
have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty ! Alas ! 
humanity is feeble, Heaven knows ! Very feeble, and unable to lo 
support itself. 

" Mcllefont. Where am I ? Is it day ? and am I awake ? 
Madam 

" Lady Plyant. O Lord, ask me the question ! I swear I'll deny 
it — therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll 15 
deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; 
I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, cousin Mellefont ! 

" Mellefont. Nay, madam, hear me; I mean 

"Lady Plyant. Hear you ? No, no; I'll deny you first, and hear 
you afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may 20 
change upon hearing — hearing is one of the senses and all the senses 
are fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is 
infallible and uncomatable. 

" Mellefont. For Heaven's sake, madam 

"Lady Plyant. Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you 25 
talk of Heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart ? May 
be, you don't think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don't 

think it a sin; but still, my honour, if it were no sin But, then, 

to marry my daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities 
— I'll never consent to that: as sure as can be, I'll break the match. 30 

" Mellefont. Death and amazement ! Madam, upon my knees 

" Lady Plyant. Nay, nay, rise up ! come, you shall see my good- 
nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 
'Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help 
it, it I have charms ? And how can you help it, if you are made 335 
captive ? I swear it is pity it should be a fault; but, my honour. 
Well, but your honour, too— but the sin ! Well, but the necessity. 
O Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must 
consider of y/jur crime: and strive as much as can be against it — 
strive, be sure; but don't be melancholick— don't despair; but never -^o 
think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no; but be sure you 
lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though I know you don't 
love Cynthia, only as a blind to your passion for me — yet it vt'il! 
make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say ? Jealous ! No, no, I 
can't be jealous; for I must not love you. Therefore don't hope; but45 
don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming; I must fly." — The Doublt 
Dealer, act ii. sc. v. page 156. 



CONGKEVE AND ADD.ISON 69 

Opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their 
faces, says he: "every woman is the same." He 
says this in his first comedy, which he wrote lan- 
guidly * in illness, when he was an '' excellent 
5 young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly 
said a more excellent thing. 

When he advances to make one of his conquests, 
it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and 
with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French 
10 dandies attacking the breach of Lerida. 

" Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a 
young lady at the Wells of Tunbridge, whom he 
salutes with a magnificent compliment — 

" Cease, cease to ask her name, 
15 The crowned Muse's noblest theme, 

Whose glory by immortal fame 

Shall only sounded be. 
But if you long to know, 
Then look round yonder dazzling row: 
20 Who most does .like an angel show, 

You may be sure 'tis she.'' 

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps 
was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of 
celebrating her — 

^5 " When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, 

With eyes so bright and with that awful air, 
I thought my heart which durst so high aspire 
As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. 

* " There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing 
30 to have done everything by chance. The Old Bachelor was written 
for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently 
composed with great elaborateness of dialogue and incessant am- 
bition of wit."— Johnson: Lives of the Poets, 



JO ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke, 

Forth from her coral lips such folly broke: 

Like balm the trickling nojisense heal'd my wound, 

And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound." 

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, 5 
but the poet does not seem to respect one much 
more than the other; and describes both with ex- 
quisite satirical humour — 

"Fair Amoret is gone astray: 

Pursue and seek her, every lover. 10 

I'll tell the signs by which you may 
The wandering shepherdess discover. 

Coquet and coy at once her air, 

Both studied, though both seemed neglected; 
Careless she is with artful care, 15 

Affecting to seem unaffected. 

With skill her eyes dart every glance, 

Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them; 

For she'd persuade they wound by chance. 
Though certain aim and art direct them. 20 

She likes herself, yet others hates, 

For that which in herself she prizes; k.l' 

And, while she laughs at them, forgets \ 

She is the thing that she despises." 

What could Amoret have done to bring down such 25 
shafts of ridicule upon her? Could she have re- 
sisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could any- 
body? Could Sabina, when she woke and heard 
such a bard singing under her window? '' See," he 
writes — 

" See ! see, she wakes — Sabina wakes ! . 30 

And now the sun begins to rise. 



CONG RE VE AND ADDISON 7 1 

Less glorious is the morn, that breaks 

From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. 

With light united, day they give; 
But different fates ere night fulfil: 
I How many by his warmth will live ! 

How many will her coldness kill ! " 

Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine 
man? If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear 
the devout Selinda: — 



lo " Pious Selinda goes to prayers, 

If I but ask the favour; 
And yet the tender fool's in tears, 
When she believes I'll leave her: 
Would I were free from this restraint, 
15 Or else had hopes to win her: 

Would she could make of me a saint, 
Or I of her a sinner ! " 



What a conquering air there is about these! 
What an irresistible Mr. Congreve it is! Sinner! 

20 of course he will be a sinner, the delightful rascal! 
Win her! of course he will win her, the victorious 
rogue! He knows he will: he must — with such a 
grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid 
embroidered suit. You see him with red-heeled 

25 shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled 
hand through his dishevelled periwig, and deliver- 
ing a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And 
Sabina? What a comparison that is between the 
nymph and the run! The sun gives Sabina the 

30 pas, and does not venture to rise before her lady- 
ship: the morn's bright beams are less glorious than 
her fair eyes; but before night everybody will be 



72 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

frozen by her glances: everybody but one lucky 
rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze in all 
his glory is hardly more splendid than our Phoebus 
Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens.* 

When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, 5 
the latter rather affected to despise his literary 
reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve 
was not far wrong.f A touch of Steele's tender- 
ness is worth all his finery; a flash of Swift's light- 
ning, a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, audio 
his tawdry playhouse taper is invisible. But the 
ladies loved him, and he was undoubtedly a pretty 
fellow.^ 



* " Among those by whom it (' Will's ') was frequented, Southerne 
and Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friend 1 5 
ship. . . . But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than 
Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him 
by his first play, the celebrated Old Bachelor, being put into the 
poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations 
to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and 20 
just commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever seen."— 
Scott's Dryden, vol. i. p. 370. 

t It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that 
Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life. 

The anecdote relating to his saying that he wished " to be visited 25 
on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness 
and simplicity," is common to all writers on the subject of Con- 
greve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire's Letters con- 
cerning the English Nation, published in London, 1733, as also in 
Goldsmith's Memoir of Voltaire. But it is worthy of remark, that 3^ 
it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of 
Voltaire's CEuvrcs Completes in the " Pantheon Litteraire." Vol. v. 
of his works. (Paris, 1837.) 

" Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porte le plus loin la gloire du 
theatre comique est feu M. Congreve. U n'a fait que peu de pieces, 35 
niais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre. . . . Vous y voyez 
partout le langage des honnetes gens avec des actions de fripon; 
ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien monde, et qu'il vivait dans 
ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie." — Voltaire: Lettrcs stir les 
Anglais. Lettre XIX, jo 

$ On the death of Queen Mary he published 3 Pastoral— TA? 



CONG REV E AND ADDISON 73 

We have seen in Swift a humourous philosopher, 
whose truth frightens one, and whose laughter 
makes one melancholy. We have had in Congreve 

Mourning Muse of Alexis. Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in 
5 the orthodox way. The Qufeen is called Pastora 

" I mourn Pastora dead, let Albion mourn, 
And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn," 

says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that — 

" With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound, 
10 And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground " — 

(a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that 
period). ... It continues — 

"Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, 
Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face 
^5 Scalding with tears the already faded grass. 

To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come ? 
And must Pastora moulder in the tomb ? 
Ah Death ! more fierce and unrelenting far 
Than wildest wolves or savage tigers are ! 
2o With lambs and sheep their hungers are appeased. 

But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized." 

This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a 
shepherdess — that figure of the " Great Shepherd " lying speechless 
on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods 

25 nor air can exhibit — are to be remembered in poetry surely; and 
this style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great 
Congreve ! 

In the Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas (the young Lord Bland- 
ford, the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis repi-e- 

30 sents Sarah Duchess ! 

The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come 
into work here again. At the sight of her grief — 

" Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego. 
And dumb dirtress and new compassion show, 
35 Nature herself attentive silence kept. 

And motion seemed suspended while she wept ! " 

And Pope dedicated the Iliad to the author of these lines — and 
Dryden wrote to him in his great hand: — 



74 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

a humourous observer of another school, to whom 
the world seems to have no morals at all, and whose 
ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should 
eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to 
the deuce (if there be a deuce) when the time 5 
comes. We come now to a humour that flows from 
quite a different heart and spirit — a wit that makes 
us laugh and leaves us good and happy; to one of 
the kindest benefactors that society has ever had; 
and I believe you have divined already that I am lo 
about to mention Addison's honoured name. 



" Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, 
But Genius must be born and never can be taught. 
This is your portion, this your native store; 

Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, jr 

To Shakespeare gave as much, she could not give him more. 

Maintain your Post: that's all the fame you need. 
For 'tis impossible you should proceed; 
Already I am worn with cares and age. 

And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: 20 

Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence, 
I live a Rent-charge upon Providence: 
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn, 
Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 

Be kind to my remains, and oh ! defend 25 

Against your Judgment your departed Friend ! 
Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue; 
But shade those Lawrels which descend to You: 
And take for Tribute what these Lines express; 
You merit more, nor could my Love do less." 30 

This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. 
In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their 
time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with 
"Jack, Jack, I must buss thee; " or, " Fore George, Harry, I must 
kiss thee, lad."^ And in a similar manner the poets saluted their 35 
brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they 
love each other better ? , 

Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author"; says 
"Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name," and addresses 
him as if he were a prince; and speaks of Pastora as one of the 4^ 
most famous tragic compositions. 



CONG REV E AND ADDISON 75 

From reading over his writings, and the biog- 
raphies which we have of him, amongst which the 
famous article in the Edinburgh Review * may be 
cited as a magnificent statue of the great writer and 

5 moraHst of the last age, raised by the love and the 
marvellous skill and genius of one of the most il- 
lustrious artists of our own: looking at that calm 
fair face, and clear countenance — those chiselled fea- 
tures pure and cold, I can't but fancy that this great 

10 man — in this respect, like him of whom we spoke 
in the last lecture — was also one of the lonely ones 

' of the world. Such men have very few equals, and 
they don't herd with those. It is in the nature of 
such lords of intellect to be solitary — they are in the 

15 world, but not of it; and our minor struggles, 
brawls, successes, pass under them. 

Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not 
tried beyond easy endurance, his affections not 
much used, for his books were his family, and his 

20 society was in public; admirably wiser, wittier, 

* " To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much 
like affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one 
who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster 
Abbey. . . . After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long 

25 been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can 
justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race." — 
Macaulay. 

" Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is 
reasonable to believe that Addison's profession and practice were 

30 at no great variance; since, amidst that storm of faction in which 
most of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicu- 
ous, and his activity made him formidable, the character given him 
by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those 
with whom interest or opinion united him, he had not only the 

35 esteem but the kindness; and of others, whom the violence of 
opposition drove against him, though he might lose the love, he 
retained the reverence." — Johnson. 



7^ ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

calmer, and more instructed than almost every man 
with whom he met, how could Addison suffer, de- 
sire, admire, feel much? I may expect a child to 
admire me for being taller or writing more cleverly 
than she; but how can I ask my superior to say that 5 
I am a wonder when he knows better than I? In 
Addison's days you could scarcely show him a lit- 
erary performance, a sermon, or a poem, or a piece 
of literary criticism, but he felt he could do better. 
His justice must have made him indifferent. He 10 
didn't praise, because he measured his compeers 
by a higher standard than common people have.* 
How was he who was so tall to look up to any but 
the loftiest genius? He must have stooped to put 
himself on a level with most men. By that pro- 15 
fusion of graciousness and smiles with which 
Goethe or Scott, for instance, greeted almost every 
literary beginner, every small literary adventurer 
who came to his court and went away charmed 
from the great king's audience, and cuddling to his 20 
heart the compliment which his literary majesty 
had paid him — each of the two good-natured po- 
tentates of letters brought their star and riband 
into discredit. Everybody had his majesty's or- 
ders. Everybody had his majesty's cheap portrait, 25 
on a box surrounded by diamonds worth twopence 
apiece. A very great and just and wise man ought 
not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of 

* " Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had 
something more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in 3^ 
any other man; but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes 
only with one, he seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stifl 
sort of silence." — Pope. Spcnce's Anecdotes. 



CONG RE VE AND ADDISON 77 

the truth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. 
Pinkethman: Addison praises the ingenious Mr. 
Doggett, the actor, whose benefit is coming off 
that night: Addison praises Don Saltero: Addison 
5 praises Mihon with all his heart, bends his knee and 
frankly pays homage to that imperial genius."^ But 
between those degrees of his men his praise is very 
scanty. I don't think the great Mr. Addison liked 
young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; I don't think 

lo he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's men 
abused Mr. Pope, I don't think Addison took his 
pipe out of his mouth to contradict them.f 

Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute 
in Wiltshire, and rose in the Church. J His famous 

15 son never lost his clerical training and scholastic 
gravity, and was called " a parson in a tye-wig " § 

* " Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence, 
lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the 
moderns, who rival him in every other part of poetry; but in the 
20 greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both 
modern and ancient. Homer only excepted. It is impossible for 
the imagination of man to distend itself with greater ideas than 
those which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth 
hooyis."— Spectator, No. 279. 
25 " If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these 
arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for 
one.^' — Ibid. No. 417. 

These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's Spectator, from 
January 19th to May 3rd, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we 
30 may place those he did to Sacred Music. 

t " Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy 
afterwards." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

' Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking 
of Pope; ' he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he 
35 has an appetite to satire.' " — Lady Wortley Montagu. Spetice's 
Anecdotes. 

t Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot 
Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of 
Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry. 
40 § " The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an 



7S ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

in London afterwards at a time when tie-wigs were 
only worn by the laity, and the fathers of theology 
did not think it decent to appear except in a full 
bottom. Having been at school at Salisbury, and 
the Charterhouse, in 1687, when he was fifteen 5 
years old, he went to Queen's College, Oxford, 
where he speedily began to distinguish himself by 
the making of Latin verses. The beautiful and 
fanciful poem of " The Pigmies and the Cranes," is 
still read by lovers of that sort of exercise; and 10 
verses are extant in honour of King William, by 
which it appears that it was the loyal youth's cus- 
tom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple 
Lyaeus: many more works are in the Collection, 
including one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, 15 
which was so good that Montague got him a pen- 
sion of £300 a year, on which Addison set out on 
his travels. 

During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had 

evening in his company, declared that he was ' a parson in a tye- 20 
wig,' can detract little from his character. He was always reserved 
to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a 
character like that of Mandeville." — Johnson: Lives of the Poets. 
(Mandeville was the author of the famous Fable of the Bees.) 

"Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel 25 
with him, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently 
to say of him — ' One day or other you'll see that man a bishop — 
I'm sure he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest 
in his heart.' " — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

" Mr. Addison stayed about a year at Blois. He would rise as 30 
early as between two and three in the height of summer, and lie 
abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was 
untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful: sometimes so lost 
in thought, that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes 
there before he has known anything of it. He had his masters 35 
generally at supper with him; kept very little company besides; 
and had no amour that I know of; and I think I should have 
known it if he had had any." — Abbe Philippeaux of Blo»s. 
Spence's Anecdotes. 



CONGKEVE AND ADDISON 79 

deeply imbued himself with the Latin poetical lit- 
erature, and had these poets at his fingers' ends 
when he travelled in Italy.* His patron went out 
of office, and his pension was unpaid: and hearing 

5 that this great scholar, now eminent and known to 
the literati of Europe (the great Boileau,t upon 
perusal of Mr. Addison's elegant hexameters, was 
first made aware that England was not altogether 
a barbarous nation) — hearing that the celebrated 

lo Mr. Addison, of Oxford, proposed to travel as gov- 
ernor to a young gentleman on the grand tour, the 
great Duke of Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison 
to accompany his son. Lord Hertford. 

Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his 

^5 Grace, and his Lordship his Grace's son, and ex- 
pressed himself ready to set forth. 

His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced 
to one of the most famous scholars of Oxford and 
Europe that it was his gracious intention to allow 

2orny Lord Hertford's tutor one hundred guineas per 
annum. Mr. Addison wrote back that his services 
were his Grace's, but he by no means found his ac- 
count in the recompense for them. The negotia- 
tion was broken ofif. They parted with a pro- 

25 fusion of congees on one side and the other.J 

* " His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus 
down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and pro- 
found." — Macaulay. 
t " Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau 
30 first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by 
perusing the present he made him of the Muses Anglicance." — 
Tickell: Preface to Addison's Works. 

t This proposal was made to Addison when he was in Holland 

on the return from his travels. He was recommended to the Duke 

35 by the bookseller, Tonson, for whom he had undertaken a transla- 



So ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Addison remained abroad for some time, living 
in the best society of Europe. How could he do 
otherwise? He must have been one of the finest 
gentlemen the world ever saw: at all moments of 
life serene and courteous, cheerful and calm.* He 5 
could scarcely ever have had a degrading thought. 
He might have omitted a virtue or two, or many, 
but could not have committed many faults for 
which he need blush or turn pale. When warmed 
into confidence, his conversation appears to have 10 
been so delightful that the greatest wits sat rapt 
and charmed to listen to him. No man bore poverty 
and narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. 
His letters to his friends at this period of his life, 
when he had lost his Government pension and 15 
given up his college chances, are full of courage and 
a gay confidence and philosophy: and they are 
none the worse in my eyes, and I hope not in those 
of his last and greatest biographer (though Mr. 
Macaulay is bound to own and lament a certain 20 
weakness for wine, which the great and good 
Joseph Addison notoriously possessed, in common 
with countless gentlemen of his time), because some 
of the letters are written when his honest hand was 
shaking a little in the morning after libations to 25 
purple Lyseus over-night. He was fond of drinking 



tion of Herodotus. He had as yet published nothing separately, 
though he was well known in Oxford, and to some of the Whig 
nobility. 

* " It was my fate to be much with the wits ; my father was 3^ 
acquainted with all of them. Addison was the best company in the 
world. I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve." 
—Lady Wortley Montagu. Spence's Anecdotes. 



CONG REV E AND ADDISON 8 1 

the healths of his friends: he writes to Wyche,* of 
Hamburg, gratefully remembering Wyche's " hoc/' 
" I have been drinking your health to-day with Sir 
Richard Shirley," he writes to Bathurst. *' I have 
5 lately had the honour to meet my Lord Effingham 
'at Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's 
health a hundred times in excellent champagne," 
he writes again. Swift f describes him over his 

* Mr. Addison to Mr. IVyche. 

lO " Dear Sir, — My hand at present begins to grow steady enough 
for a letter, so the properest use I can put it to is to thank y* honest 
gentleman that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a 
desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, which I should 
certainly have done could I have found oift a rhyme to rummer. 

15 But though you have escaped for y« present, you are not yet out 
of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at crambo. I am sure, 
in whatever way I write to you, it v/ill be impossible for me to 
express y® deep sense I have of y® many favours you have lately 
shown me. I shall only tell you that Hambourg has been the 

20 pleasantest stage I have met with in my travails. If any of my 
friends wonder at me for living so long in that place, I dare say 
it will be thought a very good excuse when I tell him Mr. Wyche 
was there. As your company made our stay at Hambourg agree- 
able, your wine has given us all y® satisfaction that we have found 

25 in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking your health will 
do you any good, you may expect to be as long-lived as Methuselah, 
or, to use a more familiar instance, as y* oldest hoc in y* cellar. 
I hope y^ two pair of legs that was left a swelling behind us are 
by this time come to their shapes again. I can't forbear troubling 

30 you with my hearty respects to y« owners of them, and desiring 
you to believe me always, " Dear Sir, 

" Yours," &c. 
" To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at 
" Hambourg, May 1703." 

35 — From the Life of Addison, by Miss Aikin. Vol. i. p. 146. 

t It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and 
Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory from first to last. The 
value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his 
vision or warped his judgment, can be doubted by nobody. 

40 " Sept. 10, 1710. — I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and 
Steele. 

" II. — Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I 
sat with him part of this evening. 



B2 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

cups, when Joseph yielded to a temptation which 
Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, 
and needed perhaps the fire of wine tp warm his 
blood. If he was a parson, he wore a tie-wig, 
recollect. A better and more Christian man 5 
scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he 
had not that little weakness for wine — why, we 
could scarcely have found a fault with him, and 
could not have liked him as we do.* 

At thirty-three years of age, this most distin-io 
guished wit, scholar, and gentleman was without a 
profession and an income. His book of " Travels " 
had failed: his " Dialogues on Medals " f had had 

" i8. — To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retire- 
ment near Chelsea. ... I will get what good offices I can from Mr. i- 
Addison. 

" 27. — To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with 
Steele and Addison, too. 

" 29.— I dined with Mr. Addison," &c. — Journal to Stella. 

Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his Travels " To Dr. 20 
Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, 
and the greatest genius of his age." — (Scott. Prom the information 
of Mr. Theophilus Swift.) 

" Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent 
person; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my 25 
credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things." — 
Letters. 

" I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write 
to you now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had 
for you. I have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for 30 
myself."— Swift to Addison (1717). Scott's Szvift. Vol. xix. p. 
274. 

Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly com- , 
munications. Time renewed them: and Tickell enjoyed Swift's 
friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so 3 5 
honourably connected. 

*" Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party 
at Button's; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and some- 
times far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, 
but found it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted40 
it."— Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t The Dialogues or. Medals only appeared posthumously. The 



I 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 83 

no particular success : his Latin verses, even though 
reported the best since Virgil, or Statins at any rate, 
had not brought him a Government place, and Ad- 
dison was living up three shabby pair of stairs in 
5 the Haymarket (in a poverty over which old Samuel 
Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby 
rooms an emissary from Government and Fortune 
came and found him." A poem was wanted about 
the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. 
• 10 Would Mr. Addison write one? Mr. Boyle, after- 
^ wards Lord Carleton, took back the reply to the 
Lord Treasurer Godolphin, that Mr. Addison 
would. When the poem had reached a certain 
stage, it was carried to Godolphin; and the last 
15 lines which he read were these: — 

" But, O my Muse ! what numbers wilt thou find 
To sing the furious troops in battle join'd ? 
Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound 
The victor's shouts and dying groans confound; 

20 The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, 
And all the thunder of the battle rise. 
'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved 
That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, 
Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, 

25 Examined all the dreadful scenes of war: 

In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed. 
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 

2oTravels appeared in 1705, i.e. after the Campaign. It is announced 
in the Diverting Post of December 2-9, 1704, that Mr. Addison's 
" long-expected poem " on the Campaign is to be published " next 
week." 

* " When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of 

35 appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had 
been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, 
therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind." 
—Johnson: Lives of the Poets. 



84 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

So when an angel, by divine command, 

With rising tempests shakes a guilty land 

(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), 

Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 

And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, 5 

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 

Addison left ofif at a good moment. That simile 
was pronounced to be of the greatest ever produced 
in poetry. That angel, that good angel, flew off 
with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of lo 
Commissioner of Appeals — vice Mr. Locke provi- 
dentially promoted. In the following year Mr. Ad- 
dison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the 
year after was made Under-Secretary of State. O 
angel visits! you come "few and far between" to 15 
literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom 
quiver at second-floor windows now ! * 

You laugh? You think it is in the power of few 
writers nowadays to call up such an angel? Well, 
perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves 20 
by pointing out that there are in the poem of the 

* [The famous story in the text, which has been generally ac- 
cepted, is probably inaccurate. It was first told in 1732 by Addison's 
cousin, Eustace Budgell, then ruined and half sane, who was trying 
to pufif himself by professing familiar knowledge of his eminent 25 
relation. The circumstantiality of the story is suspicious; Godol- 
phin was the last man to give preferment to a poet in the way 
described, and Addison was not in the position implied. He had 
strong claims upon Halifax, his original patron. When Halifax 
lost office, Addison's pension had ceased. Halifax was now being ^o 
courted by Godolphin, and could make an effective application on' 
behalf of his client. This and not the simile of the angel, was 
probably at the bottom of Addison's preferment. It has lately 
appeared, from the publication of Hearne's diaries by the Oxford 
Historical Society, that, in December 1705, it was reported that 33 
Addison was to marry the Countess of Warwick. The marriage was 
delayed for eleven years; but it is clear that Addison Iiad powerful 
friends at this time.] 



CONG RE VE AND ADDISON 85 

" Campaign " some as bad lines as heart can desire; 
and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wisely in not 
going further with my Lord Godolphin than that 
angelical simile. Do allow me, just for a little 
5 harmless mischief, to read you some of the lines 
which follow. Here is the interview between the 
Duke and the King of the Romans after the bat- 
tle:— 

" Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway 
10 Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, 

Whose boasted ancestry so high extends 
That in the Pagan Gods his lineage ends, 
Comes from afar, in gratitude to own 
The great supporter of his father's throne. 
15 What tides of glory to his bosom ran 

Clasped in th' embraces of the godlike man ! 
How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, 
To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! 
Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, 
20 So turned and finished for the camp or court ! " 

How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's 
school of Charterhouse could write as well as that 
now? The '' Campaign " has blunders, triumphant 
as it was; and weak points like all campaigns.* 
25 In the year 1713 " Cato " came out. Swift has 
left a description of the first night of the perform- 
ance. All the laurels of Europe were scarcely suffi- 
cient for the author of this prodigious poem.f 

* " Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very 

30slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to 

several friends; and would alter almost everything that any of 

them hinted at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffident of himself; 

and too much concerned about his character as a poet; or (as he 

worded it) too solicitous for that kind of praise which, God knows, 

35 is but a very little matter after all ! "—Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t " As to poetical affairs," says Pope in 1713, " I am content at 



86 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Laudations of Whig and Tory chiefs, popular ova- 
tions, compHmentary garlands from literary men, 

present to be a bare looker-on. . . . Cato was not so much the won- 
der of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though 
all the foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought 5 
a party play, yet what the author once said of another may the most 
properly in the world be applied to him on this occasion: — 

"'Envy itself is dumb — in wonder lost; 

And factions strive who shall applaud him most.' 

" The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one lo 
side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other; 
while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find 
their applause proceeding more from the hand than the head. . . . 
I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite 
faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, 1 5 
into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledg- 
ment (as he expressed it) for defending the cause of liberty so 
well against a perpetual dictator." — Pope's Letters to Sir W. Trum- 
bull. 

Cato ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote 
the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue. 20. 

It is worth noticing how many things in Cato keep their ground I 
as habitual quotations; e.g. — I 

"... big with the fate 1 

Of Cato and of Rome." 1 



'Tis not in mortals to command success; "^ 

But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." 



" Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury. 
" I think the Romans call it Stoicism." 
" My voice is still for war." 






" When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, 3^ 

The post of honour is a private station." 

Not to mention — 

" The woman who deliberates is lost." 

And the eternal — 

" Plato, thou reasonest well," 35 

which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play I 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 8/ 

translations in all languages, delight and homage 
from all — save from John Dennis in a minority of 
one. Mr. Addison was called the '' great Mr. Addi- 
son " after this. The Coffee-house Senate saluted 
shim Divus: it was heresy to question that decree. 
Meanwhile he was writing political papers and 
advancing in the political profession. He went 
Secretary to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary 
of State in 1717. And letters of his are extant, 

10 bearing date some year or two before, and written 
to young Lord Warwick, in which he addresses 
him as " my dearest Lord," and asks afifectionately 
about his studies, and writes very prettily about 
nightingales and birds'-nests, which he has found 

1 5 at Fulham for his Lordship. Those nightingales 
were intended to warble in the ear of Lord War- 
wick's mamma. Addison married her Ladyship in 
1716; and died at Holland House three years after 
that splendid but dism*al union.* 

20 * " The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like 
those on which a Turkish princess is espoused — to whom the Sultan is 
reported to pronounce, ' Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' 
The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addi- 
tion to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, 

25 equal. . . . Rowe's ballad of ' The Despairing Shepherd ' is said 
to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this 
memorable pair." — Dr. Johnson. 

" I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary 
of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost 

."lO offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really 
believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such 
a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, 
in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see 
the day when he will, be heartily glad to resign them both."— 

35 Lady Wortley Montagu to Pope: Works, Lord IVharncliffc's 
edit., vol. ii. p. iii. 

The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, 
who inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near 



55 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

But it is not for his reputation as the great author 
of *' Cato " and the " Campaign," or for his merits 
as Secretary of State, or for his rank and high dis- 
tinction as my Lady Warwick's husband, or for his 
eminence as an Examiner of poHtical questions on 5 
the Whig side, or a Guardian of British Hberties, 
that we admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of 
small talk and a Spectator of mankind, that we 
cherish and love him, and owe as much pleasure to 
him as to any human being that ever wrote. He 10 
came in that artificial age, and began to speak with 
his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle 
satirist who hit no unfair blow; the kind judge who 
castigated only in smiling. While Swift went about, 
hanging and ruthless — a literary Jeffreys — in Addi-15 
son's kind court only minor cases were tried; only 
peccadilloes and small sins against society: only a 
dangerous libertinism in tuckers and hoops;* or a 

Rugby, which her father had purchased. She was of weak intellect, 
and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. 20 

Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his court- 
ship, for his Collection contains " Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on 
Mr. Addison's going to Ireland," in which her Ladyship is called 
" Chloe," and Joseph Addison " Lycidas "; besides the ballad 
mentioned by the Doctor, and which is entitled " Colin's Com- 25 
plaint." But not even the interest attached to the name of Ad- 
dison could induce the reader to peruse this composition, though 
one stanza may serve as a specimen: — 

" What though I have skill to complain — 
Though the Muses my temples have crowned; -^O 

What though, when they hear my soft strain. 
The virgins sit weeping around. 

Ah, Colin ! thy hopes are in vain; 
Thy pipe and thy laurel resign; 

Thy false one inclines to a swain 35 

Whose music is sweeter than thine." 
** One of the most humourous of these is the paper on Hoops, 



CONG RE VE AND ADDISON 89 

nuisance in the abuse of beaux' canes and snuff- 
boxes. It may be a lady is tried for breaking the 
peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, and 
ogling too dangerously from the side-box; or a 

5 which, the Spectator tells us, particularly pleased his friend Sir 
Roger: — 

" Mr. Spectator,— You have diverted the town almost a whole 
month at the expense of the country; it is now high time that you 
should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing 

JO from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagances. Their 
petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are 
now blown up into a rnost enormous concave, and rise every day 
more and more; in short, sir, since our women know themselves 
to be out of the eye of the Spectator, they will be kept within no 

15 compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the modesty of 
their head-dresses; for as the humour of a sick person is often 
driven out of one limb into another, their superfluity of ornaments, 
instead of being entirely banished, seems only fallen from their 
heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they 

20 make up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, 
widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the 
superstructure. 

" The woinen give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that 
they are airy and very proper for the season; but this I look upon 

25 to be only a pretence and a piece of art, for it is well known we 
have not had a more moderate summer these many years, so that 
it is certain the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather; 
besides, I would fain ask these tender-constituted ladies, why they 
should require more cooling than their mothers before them ? 

3'^ " I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex 
has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is 
made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a 
woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this man- 
ner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks of 

35 lines and circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whale- 
bone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred 
fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etherege's way of 
making love in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops. 
" Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious 

40 tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. 
Some will have it that it portends the downfall of the French king, 
and observe, that the farthingale appeared in England a little before 
the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it 
foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostic 

45 cation as the tail of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think 
it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than 
going out of it," &c. Sec— Spectator, No. 127. 



90 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Pris- 
cian's head; or a citizen's wife for caring too much 
for the puppet-show, and too little for her husband 
and children: every one of the little sinners brought 
before him is amusing, and he dismisses each with 5 
the pleasantest penalties and the most charming 
words of admonition. 

Addison wrote his papers as gaily as if he was 
going out for a holiday. When Steele's Taller first 
began his prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, caught lo 
at his friend's notion, poured in paper after paper, 
and contributed the stores of his mind, the sweet 
fruits of his reading, the delightful gleanings of his 
daily observation, with a wonderful profusion, and 
as it seemed an almost endless fecundy. He was^S 
six-and-thirty years old: full and ripe. He had not 
worked crop after crop from his brain, manuring 
hastily, sub-soiling indifferently, cutting and sow- 
ing and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators 
of letters. He had not done much as yet: a few 20 . 
Latin poems — graceful prolusions; a polite book \ 
of travels; a dissertation on medals, not very deep; 
four acts of a tragedy, a great classical exercise; 
and the '' Campaign," a large prize poem that won 
an enormous prize. But with his friend's discov- 25 
cry of the '' Tatler," Addison's calling was found, 
and the most delightful talker in the world began 
to speak. He does not go very deep: let gentle- 
men of a profound genius, critics accustomed to I 
the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by 30 • 
thinking that he couldnl go very deep. There are 
no traces of snfTfering in his writing. He was so 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 9 1 

good, SO honest, so healthy, so cheerfully selfish, if 
I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. 
I doubt, until after his marriage, perhaps, whether 
he ever lost his' night's rest or his day's tranquillity 
5 about any woman in his life; * whereas poor Dick 
Steele had capacity enough to melt, and to languish, 
and to sigh, and to cry his honest old eyes out, for 
a dozen. His writings do not show insight into or 
reverence for the love of women, which I take to 

10 be, one the consequence of the other. He walks 
about the world watching their pretty humours, 
fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries: and noting 
them with the most charming archness. He sees 

' them in public, in the theatre, or the assembly, or 

15 the puppet-show; or at the toy-shop higgling for 
gloves and lace; or at the auction, battling together 
over a blue porcelain dragon, or a darling monster 
in Japan; or at church, eyeing the width of their 
rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they 

2c sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out of his window 
at the "Garter" in Saint James's Street, at Ardelia's 
coach, as she blazes to the drawing-room with her 
coronet with six footmen; and remembering that 
her father was a Turkey merchant in the City, cal- 

25culates how many sponges went to purchase her 
earring, and how many drums of figs to build her 
coach-box; or he demurely watches behind a tree 
in Spring Garden as Saccharissa (whom he knows 
under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley 

30 * '* Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear 
of, and must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, 
Spenser, to make his own." — ^Pope's Letters. 



92 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

where wSir Fopling is waiting. He sees only the pub- 
he hfe of women. Addison was one of the most 
resolute clubmen of his day. He passed many 
hours daily in those haunts. Besides drinking — 
which, alas! is past praying for — you must know it, 5 
he owned, too, ladies, that he indulged in that 
odious practice of smoking. Poor fellow! He was 
a man's man, remember. The only woman he did 
know, he didn't write about. I take it there would 
not have been much humour in that story. 10 

He likes to go and sit in the smoking-room at 
the "Grecian," or the "Devil"; to pace 'Change 
and the Mall ''' — to mingle in that great club of the 

* " I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with 
pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair 15 
man, of mild or a choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with 
other particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the 
right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which 
is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as pre- 
fatory discourses to my following writings; and shall give some 20 
account in them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As 
the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to 
my share, I must do myself thfe justice to open the work with my 
own history. . . . There runs a story in the family, that when my 
mother was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt 25 
that she was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might 
proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, 
or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; 
for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I 
should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation 30 
which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour 
at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that I 
sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she fias 
often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, 
and would not make use of my coral till they had taken away 35 
the bells from it. 

" As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it re- 
markable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my 
nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always 
the favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that my parts 40 
were solid and would wear well. I had not been long at the Uni- 
ersity before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; 



CONGKEVE AND ADDISON 93 

world— sitting alone in it somehow: having good- 
will and kindness for every single man and woman 
in it — having need of some habit and custom bind- 
ing him to some few; never doing any man a wrong 

5 (unless it be a wrong to hint a little doubt about 
a man's parts, and to damn him with faint praise); 
and so- he looks on the world and plays with the 
ceaseless humours of all of us— laughs the kindest 
laugh— points our neighbour's foible or eccentricity 

10 out to us with the most good-natured smiling con- 
fidence; and then, turning over his shoulder, whis- 

for during the space of eight years, excepting in the pubUc exer- 
cises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of a hundred 
words; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke three 

1 5 sentences together in my whole life. ... 

" I have passed my latter years in the city, where I am frequently 
seen in most public places, though there are not more _ than 
half-a-dozen of my select friends that know me. . . . There is no 
place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; 

20 sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians 
at ' Will's,' and listening with great attention to the narratives that 
are made in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a 
pipe at ' Child's,' and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the 
Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I 

25 appear on Tuesday night at ' St. James's Cofifee-house ' ; and some- 
times join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one 
who comes to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well 
knov/n at the ' Grecian,' the ' Cocoa-tree,' and in the theatres both 
of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a 

30merchant upon the Exchange for above these two years; and^ some- 
times pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at ' Jona- 
than's.' In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I mix with 
them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. 

" Thus I live in the world rather as a ' Spectator ' of mankind 

35 than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself 
a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever 
meddling in any practical part in life. I am very well versed in 
the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in 
the economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those 

4Cwho are engaged in them— as standers-by discover blots which are 
apt to escape those who are in the game. ... In short, I have 
acted, in all the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the 
character I intend to preserve in this paper."—Spectator, No. i. 



94 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

pers our foibles to our neighbour. What would Sir 
Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his 
charming little brain-cracks? * If the good knight 
did not call out to the people sleeping in church, 
and say " Amen " with such a delightful pomposity; 5 
if he did not make a speech in the assize-court a 
propos de bottcs, and merely to show his dignity to 
Mr. Spectator: f if he did not mistake Madam Doll 
Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden: 
if he were wiser than he is: if he had not his hu-io 
mour to salt his life, and were but a mere English 
gentleman and game-preserver — of what worth were 
he to us? We love him for his vanities as much as 
his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful in him; 
we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. 15 
And out of that laughter, and out of that sweet 
weakness, and out of those harmless eccentricities 

* " So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which 
had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the 
open violation of decency has always been considered, amongst us, 20 
the sure mark of a fool." — Macaulay. 

t " The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, notwithstand- 
ing all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they 
m_ade room for the old knight at the head of them; who for his 
reputation in the country took occasion to whisper in the judge's 25 
ear that he zvas glad his Lordship had met with so much good 
weather in his circuit. I was listening to the proceedings of the 
Court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that great 
appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a 
public administration of our laws; when, after about an hour's sit- 30 
ting, I observed, to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that 
my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I was in some pain 
for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of tv/o or three 
sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity. 

" Upon his first rising, the Court was hushed, and a general whisper 35 
ran among the country people that Sir Roger was up. The speech 
he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my 
readers with an account of it, and I believe was not so much 
designed by the knight himself to inform the Court as to give him 

a figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the country." iO 

Spectator, No. 122, 



CONG REV E AMD ADDISON- 95 

and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out 
of that honest manhood and simplicity — we get a 
result of happiness, goodness, tenderness, pity, 
piety; such as, if my audience will think their read- 
sing and hearing over, doctors and divines but sel- 
dom have the fortune to inspire. And why not? Is 
the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen 
in black coats? Must the truth be only expounded 
in gown and surplice, and out of those two vest- 

loments can nobody preach it? Commend me to this 
dear preacher without orders — this parson in the 
tie-wig. When this man looks from the world, 
whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up 
to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly 

1 5 fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene 
rapture: a human intellect thrilling with a purer 
love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. Listen 
to him: from your childhood you have known the 
verses: but who can hear their sacred music with- 

20 out love and awe? — 

" Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth; 

25 Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 

And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll. 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
What though, in solemn silence, all 

30 Move round the dark terrestrial ball; 

What though no real voice nor sound 
Amid their radiant orbs be found; 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 

35 For ever singing as they shine. 

The hand that made us is divine." 



96 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

It seems to me those verses shine hke the stars. 
They shine out of a great deep calm. When he 
turns to Heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's 
mind: and his face Hghts up from it with a glory of 
thanks and prayer. His sense of religion stirs 5 
through his whole being. In the fields, in the town: 
looking at the birds in the trees: at the children in 
the streets: in the morning or in the moonlight: 
over his books in his own room: in a happy party 
at a country merry-making or a town assembly, 10 
good-will and peace to God's creatures, and love 
and awe of Him who made them, fill his pure heart 
and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was 
the most wretched, I think Addison's was one of 
the most enviable. A life prosperous and beautiful 15 
— a calm death — ^an immense fame and afifection 
afterwards for his happy and spotless name.* 

* " Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) 
on his death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian reHgion was 
true."— Dr. Young. Spoice's Anecdotes. 20 

" I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I 
consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is 
short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are 
often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject 
to the greatest depression of melancholy: on the contrary, cheer- 25 
fulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, 
prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrOw. Mirth is like 
a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and 
glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in 
the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity." — 3C 
Addison: Spectator, No. 381. 



S 



Steele 

What do we look for in studying the history of 
a past age? Is it to learn the poHtical transactions 
and characters of the leading public men? is it to 
make ourselves acquainted with the life and being 

5 of the time? If we set out with the former grave 
purpose, where is the truth, and who believes that 
he has it entire? What character of what great man 
is known to you? You can but make guesses as 
to character more or less happy. In common life 

lo don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole 
conduct, setting out from a wrong impression? The 
tone of a voice, a word said in joke, or a trifle in 
behaviour — the cut of his hair or the tie of his 
neckcloth may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison 

iSvour good opinion; or at the end of years of in- 
timacy it may be your closest friend says some- 
thing, reveals something which had previously been 
a secret, which alters all your views about him, and 
shows that he has been acting on quite a different 

20 motive to that which you fancied you knew. And 
if it is so with those you know, how much more 
with those you don't know? Say, for example, that 
I want to understand the character of the Duke of 
Marlborough. I read Swift's history of the times 

97 



9o ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

in which he took a part; the shrewdest of observers 
and initiated, one would think, into the pohtics of 
the age — he hints to me that Marlborough was a 
coward, and even of doubtful military capacity: 
he speaks of Walpole as a contemptible boor, and 5 
scarcely mentions, except to flout it, the great in- 
trigue of the Queen's latter days, which was to have 
ended in bringing back the Pretender. Again, I 
read Marlborough's Life by a copious archdeacon, 
who has the command of immense papers, of sono-io 
rous language, of what is called the best informa- 
tion; and I get little or no insight into this secret 
motive which, I believe, influenced the whole of 
Marlborough's career, which caused his turnings 
and windings, his opportune fidelity and treason, t5 
stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed 
him finally on the Hanoverian side — the winning 
side: I get, I say, no truth, or only a portion of it, 
in the narrative of either writer, and believe that 
Coxe's portrait, or Swift's portrait, is quite unlike2o 
the real Churchill. I take this as a single instance, 
prepared to be as sceptical about any other, and 
say to the Muse of History, '* O venerable daugh- 
ter of Mnemosyne, I doubt every single statement 
you ever made since your ladyship was a Museiss 
For all your grave airs and high pretensions, you 
are not a whit more trustworthy than some of your 
lighter sisters on whom your partisans look down. 
You bid me listen to a general's oration to his sol- 
diers: Nonsense! He no more made it than Tur-3o 
pin made his dying speech at Newgate. You pro- 
nounce a panegyric on a hero : I doubt it, ^and say 



STEELE 99 

you flatter outrageously. You utter the condem- 
nation of a loose character: I doubt it, and think 
you are prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. 
You ofifer me an autobiography: I doubt all auto- 

5 biographies I ever read; except those, perhaps, of 
Mr. Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, and writers of his 
class. These have no object in setting themselves 
right with the public or their own consciences; 
these have no motive for concealment or half- 

10 truths; these call for no more confidence than I can 
cheerfully give, and do not force me to tax my 
credulity or to fortify it by evidence. I take up a 
volume of Doctor Smollett, or a volume of the 
Spectator, and say the fiction carries a greater 

15 amount of truth in solution than the volume which 
purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book 
I get the expression of the life of the time; of the 
manners, of the movement, the dress, the pleasures, 
the laughter, the ridicules of society — the old times 

20 live again, and I travel in the old country of Eng- 
land. Can the heaviest historian do more for me? 

As we read in these delightful volumes of the 
Tatlcr and Spectator the past age returns, the Eng- 
land of our ancestors is revivified. The Maypole 

23 rises in the Strand again in London;^ the churches 
are thronged with daily worshippers; the beaux are 
gathering in the coffee-houses; the gentry are go- 
ing to the Drawing-room ; the ladies are thronging 
to the toy-shops: the chairmen are jostling in the 

30 streets; the footmen are running with links be- 
fore the chariots, or fighting round the theatre 
doors. In the country I see the young Squire rid- 



lOO ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

ing to Eton with his servants behind him, and Will 
Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe. 
To make that journey from the Squire's and back, 
Will is a week on horseback. The coach takes five 
days between London and Bath. The judges and 5 
the bar ride the circuit. If my Lady comes to town 
in her post-chariot, her people carry pistols to fire 
a salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear, 
and her couriers ride ahead to prepare apartments 
for her at the great caravanserais on the road; 10 
Boniface receives her under the creaking sign of the 
'' Bell " or the " Ram," and he and his chamber- 
lains bow her up the great stair to the state apart- 
ments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the court- 
yard, where the '' Exeter Fly " is housed that per- 15 
forms the journey in eight days, God willing, hav- 
ing achieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and 
landed its passengers for supper and sleep. The 
curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where the 
Captain's man — having hung up his master's half- 20 
pike — is at his bacon and eggs, bragging of Ramil- 
lies and Malplaquet to the townsfolk, who have 
their club in the chimney-corner. The Captain is 
ogling the chambermaid in the wooden gallery, or 
bribing her to know wdio is the pretty young mis- 25 
tress that has come in the coach. The pack-horses 
are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers 
carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, 
over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of 
military appearance, who travels with pistols, as all 3° 
the rest of the world does, and has a rattling grey 
mare in the stables which will be saddled and away 



STEELE lOI 

v/itli Its owner half-an-hour before the " Fly " sets 
out on its last day's flight. And some five miles on 
the road, as the '* Exeter Fly " comes jingling and 
creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought to a 

5 halt by a gentleman on a grey mare, with a black 
vizard on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into the 
coach window, and bids the company to hand out 
their purses. ... It must have been no small pleas- 
ure even to sit in the great kitchen in those days, 

lo and see the tide of humankind pass by. We arrive 
at places now, but we travel no more. Addison 
talks jocularly of a difference of manner and cos- 
tume being quite perceivable at Staines, where 
there passed a young fellow " with a very tolerable 

15 periwig," though, to be sure, his hat was out of 
fashion, and had a Ramillies cock. I would have 
liked to travel in those days (being of that class of 
travellers who are proverbially pretty easy coram 
latronibus) and have seen my friend with the grey 

20 mare and the black vizard. Alas! there always 
came a day in the life of that warrior when it was 
the fashion to accompany him as he passed — with- 
out his black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, 
accompanied by halberdiers and attended by the 

25 sheriff, — in a carriage without springs, and a 
clergyman jolting beside him, to a spot close by 
Cumberland Gate and the Marble Arch, where a 
stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike stood. 
What a change in a century; in a few years! Within 

3«a few yards of that gate the fields began: the fields 
of his exploits, behind the hedges of which he 
lurked and robbed. A great and wealthy city has 



I02 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

grown over those meadows. Were a man brought 
to die there now, the windows would be closed and 
the inhabitants keep their houses in sickening hor- 
ror. A hundred years back, people crowded to see 
that last act of a highwayman's life, and make jokes 5 
on it. Swift laughed at him, grimly advising him 
to provide a Holland shirt and white cap crowned 
with a crimson or black riband for his exit, to 
m.ount the cart cheerfully — shake hands with the 
hangman, and so — farewell. Gay wrote the most 10 
delightful ballads, and made merry over the same 
hero. Contrast these with the writings of our 
present humourists! Compare those morals and 
ours — those manners and ours! 

We can't tell — you would not bear to be told — 15 
the whole truth regarding those men and manners. 
You could no more suffer in a Britisli drawing- 
room, under the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine 
gentleman or fine lady of Queen Anne's time, or 
hear what they heard and said, than you would re- 20 
ceive an ancient Briton. It is as one reads about 
savages, that one contemplates the wild ways, the 
barbarous feasts, the terrific pastimes, of the men 
of pleasure of that age. We have our fine gentle- 
men, and our " fast men "; permit me to give you 25 
an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of Queen 
Anne's days, whose biography has been preserved 
to us by the law reporters. 

In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my 
Lord Mohun was tried by his peers for the murder 30 
of William Mountford, comedian. In '' Howell's 
State Trials," the reader will find not only an edi- 



STEELE 103 

fying account of this exceedingly fast nobleman, 
but of the times and manners of those days. My 
Lord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the 
charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and 

5 anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined to 
carry her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney- 
coach with six horses, and a half-dozen of soldiers 
to aid him in the storm. The coach with a pair of 
horses (tire four leaders being in waiting elsewhere) 

10 took its station opposite my Lord Craven's house 
in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. Bracegirdle 
was to pass on her way from the theatre. As she 
passed in company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. 
Page, the Captain seized her by the hand, the sol- 

^Sdiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in 
hand, and Captain Hill and his noble friend en- 
deavoured to force Madam Bracegirdle into the 
coach. Mr. Page called for help: the population of 
Drury Lane rose: it was impossible to effect the 

-o capture; and bidding the soldiers go about their 
business, and the coach to drive ofif. Hill let go of 
his prey sulkily, and waited for other opportunities 
of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous 
was Will Mountford, the comedian; Will removed, 

-She thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his: and ac- 
cordingly the Captain and his Lordship lay that 
night in wait for Will, and as he was coming out of 
a house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged 
him in talk, Hill, in the words of the Attorney- 

^ General, made a pass and ran him clean through the 
body. 

Sixty-one of my Lord's peers finding him not 



I04 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

guilty of murder, while but fourteen found him 
guilty, this very fast nobleman was discharged : and 
made his appearance seven years after in another 
trial for murder — when he, my Lord Warwick, and 
three gentlemen of the military profession, were 5 
concerned in the fight which ended in the death of 
Captain Coote. 

This jolly company were drinking together in 
'' Lockit's " at Charing Cross, when angry words 
arose between Captain Coote and Captain French; 10 
whom my Lord Mohun and my Lord the Earl of 
Warwick * and Holland endeavoured to pacify. 
My Lord Warwick was a dear friend of Captain 
Coote, lent him iioo to buy his commission in .the 
Guards; once when the Captain was arrested for 15 
£13 by his tailor, my Lord lent him five guineas, 
often paid his reckoning for him, and showed him 
other offices of friendship. On this. evening the dis- 
putants, French and Coote, being separated whilst 
they were upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale 20 
again at the bar of '' Lockit's." The row began 

* The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the 
father of the young Earl, who was brought to his stepfather's bed 
to see " how a Christian could die." He was amongst the wildest 
of the nobility of that day; and in the curious collection of Chap- 25 
Books at the British Museum, I have seen more than one anecdote 
of the freaks of the gay lord. He was popular in London, as such 
daring spirits have been in our time. The anecdotists speak very 
kindly of his practical jokes. Mohun was scarcely out of prison for 
his second homicide, when he went on Lord Macclesfield's embassy30 
to the Elector of Hanover when Queen Anne sent the Garter to 
his Highness. The chronicler of the expedition speaks of his Lord- 
ship as an amiable young man, who had been in bad company, 
but was quite repentant and reformed. He and Macartney after- 
wards murdered the Duke of Hamilton between them, in which act 35 
Lord Mohun died. This amiable Baron's name was Charles, and 
not Henry, as a recent novelist has christened him (in Esmond). 



STEELE 105 

afresh — Coote lunged at French over the bar, and 
at last all six called for chairs, and went to Leices- 
ter Fields, where they fell to. Their Lordships en- 
gaged on the side of Captain Coote. My Lord of 

5 Warwick was severely wounded in the hand, Mr. 
French also was stabbed, but honest Captain Coote 
got a couple of wounds — one especially, " a wound 
in the left side just under the short ribs, and pierc- 
ing through the diaphragma," which did for Cap- 

10 tain Coote. Hence the trials of my Lords War- 
wick and Mohun: hence the assemblage of peers, 
the report of the transaction in which these defunct 
fast men still live for the observation of the curioiiis. 
My Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar by the 

15 Deputy-Governor of the Tower of London, having 
the axe carried before him by the gentleman gaoler, 
who stood with it at the bar at the right hand of the 
prisoner, turning the edge from him; the prisoner, 
at his approach, making three bows, one to his 

20 Grace the Lord High Steward, the other to the 
peers on each hand; and his Grace and the peers 
return the salute. And besides these great person- 
ages, august in periwigs, and nodding to the right 
and left, a host of the small come up out of the past 

25 and pass before us — the jolly captains brawling in 
the tavern, and laughing and cursing over their 
cups — the drawer that serves, the bar-girl that 
waits, the bailiff on the prowl, the chairmen trudg- 
ing through the black lampless streets, and smok- 

3oing their pipes by the railings, whilst swords are 
clashing in the garden within. ''Help there! a 
gentleman is hurt ! " The chairmen put up their 



I06 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

pipes, and help the gentleman over the railings, 
and carry him, ghastly and bleeding, to the Bagnio 
in Long Acre, where they knock up the surgeon — 
a pretty tall gentleman : but that wound under the 
short ribs has done for him. Surgeon, lords, cap- 5 
tains, bailiffs, chairmen, and gentleman gaoler with 
your axe, where be you now? The gentleman axe- 
man's head is oil his o.wn shoulders; the lords and 
judges can wag theirs no longer; the bailiff's writs 
have ceased to run: the honest chairmen's pipes are 10 
put out, and with their brawny calves they have 
walked away into Hades — all is irrecoverably done 
for as Will Mountford or Captain Coote. The sub- 
ject of our night's lecture saw all these people — 
rode in Captain Coote's company of the Guards 15 
very probably — wrote and sighed for Bracegirdle, 
went home tipsy in many a chair, after many a bot- 
tle, in many a tavern — fled from many a bailiff. 

In 1709, when the publication of the Tatler be- 
gan, our great-great-grandfathers must have seized 20 
upon that new and delightful paper with much such 
eagerness as lovers of light literature in a later day 
exhibited when the Waverley novels appeared, 
upon which the public rushed, forsaking that feeble 
entertainment of which the Miss Porters, the Anne 25 
of Swanseas, a.nd worthy Mrs. Radcliffe herself, 
with her dreary castles and exploded old ghosts, 
had had pretty much the monopoly. I have looked 
over many of the comic books with which our an- 
cestors amused themselves, from the novels of 3o 
Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. Manley, the delectable au- 
thor of the " New Atlantis," to the facetious pro- 



STEELE 107 

ductions of Tom Durfey, and Tom Brown, and Ned 
Ward, writer of the " London Spy " and several 
other volumes of ribaldry. The slang of the tav- 
erns and ordinaries, the wit of the bagnios, form the 

5 strongest part of the farrago of which these libels 
are composed. In the excellent newspaper collec- 
tion at the British Museum, you may see, besides, 
the Craftsman * and Postboy specimens — and queer 
specimens they are — of the higher literature of 

10 Queen Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a nota- 
ble journal bearing date Wednesday, October 13th, 
1708, and entitled The British Apollo; or, curious 
amusements for the ingenions, by a society of gentle- 
men. The British Apollo invited and professed to 

15 answer questions upon all subjects of wit, morality, 
science, and even religion; and two out of its four 
pages are filled with queries and replies much like 
some of the oracular penny prints of the present 
time. 

20 One of the first querists, referring to the passage 
that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, 
argues that polygamy is justifiable in the laity. The 
society of gentlemen conducting the British Apollo 
are posed by this casuist, and promis-e to give him 

25 an answer. Celinda then wishes to know from " the 
gentleman," concerning the souls ©f the dead, 
whether they shall have the satisfaction to know 
those whom they most valued in this transitory 
life. The gentlemen of the Apollo give but poor 

30comifort to poor Celinda. They are inclined to 
think not; for, say they, since every inhabitant of 

* The Craftsman did not appear till 1726. 



Io8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

those regions will be infinitely dearer than here are 
our nearest relatives — what have we to do with a 
partial friendship in that happy place? Poor Ce- 
linda! it may have been a child or a lover whom 
she had lost, and w^as pining after, wdien the oracle 5 
of British Apollo gave her this dismal answer. She 
has solved the question for herself by this time, and 
knows quite as well as the society of gentlemen. 

From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, 
"Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold?" 10 
Apollo replies, *' Hot water cannot be said to freeze 
sooner than cold; but water once heated and cold 
may be subject to freeze by the evaporation of the 
spirituous parts of the water, which renders it less 
able to withstand the power of frosty weather." 15 

The next query is rather a delicate one. " You, 
Mr. Apollo, who are said to be the God of Wisdom, 
pray give us the reason why kissing is so much in 
fashion: what benefit one receives by it, and who 
was the inventor, and you will oblige Corinna." 20 
To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus, smiling, 
answer: '' Pretty innocent Corinna! Apollo owns 
that he was a little surprised by your kissing ques- 
tion, particularly at that part of it where you desire 
tt) know the benefit you receive by it. Ah ! 25 
madam, had you a lover, you would not come to 
Apollo fOT a solution; since there is no dispute but 
the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite satisfaction. 
As to its invention, 'tis certain nature was its au- 
thor, and it began with the first courtship." 3^ 

After a column more of questions, follow nearly 
two pages of poems, signed bv Philander, Armenia, 



STEELE iC9 

and the like, and chiefly on the tender passion; and 
the paper winds up with a letter from Leghorn, an 
account of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince 
Eugene before Lille, and proposals for publishing 

5 two sheets on the present state of Ethiopia, by Mr. 
Hill: all of which is printed for the authors by J. 
Mayo, at the Printing Press against Water Lane 
in Fleet Street. What a change it must have been 
— how Apollo s oracles must have been struck dumb 

lo — when the Taller appeared, and scholars, gentle- 
men, men of the world, men of genius, began to 
speak! 

Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young 
Swift had begun to make acquaintance with Eng- 

islish Court manners and English servitude, in Sir 
William Temple's family, another Irish youth was 
brought to learn his humanities at the old school 
of Charterhouse, near Smithfield; to which founda- 
tion he had been appointed by James, Duke of Or- 

20 mond, a governor of the House, and a patron of 
the lad's family. The boy was an orphan, and de- 
scribed, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos and 
simplicity, some of the earliest recollections of a life 
which was destined to be chequered by a strange 

25 variety of good and evil fortune. 

I am afraid no good report could be given by 
his masters and ushers of that thick-set, square- 
faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted little Irish boy. He 
was very idle. He was whipped deservedly a great 

30 number of times. Though he had very good parts 
of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for 
him, and only took just as much trouble as should 



no ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

enable him to scuffle through his exercises, and by 
good fortune escape the flogging-block. One hun- 
dred and fifty years after, I have myself inspected, 
but only as an amateur, that instrument of righteous 
torture still existing, and in occasional use, in a 5 
secluded private apartment of the old Charterhouse 
School; and have no doubt it is the very counter- 
part, if not the ancient and interesting machine it- 
self, at which poor Dick Steele submitted himself to 
the tormentors. 

Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-na- 
tured, this boy went invariably into debt with the 
tart- woman; ran out of bounds, and entered into 
pecuniary, or rather promissory engagements with 
the neighbouring lollipop vendors and piemen— 15 
exhibited an early fondness and capacity for drink- 
ing mum and sack, and borrowed from all his com- 
rades who had money to lend. I have no sort of 
authority for the statements here made of Steele's 
early life; but if the child is father of the man, the 20 
father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford 
without taking a degree, and entered the Life 
Guards— the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's 
Fusiliers, who got his company through the 
patronage of my Lord Cutts— the father of Mr. 25 
Steele the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of 
the Gazette, the Tatler, and Spectator, the expelled 
Member of ParHament, and the author of the " Ten- 
der Husband" and the "Conscious Lovers"; if 
man and boy resembled each other, Dick Steele the 30 
schoolboy must have been one of the most gen- 
erous, good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures 



STEELE III 

that ever conjugated the verb tiipto, I beat, tuptomai, 
I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain. 

Ahiiost every gentleman who does me the honour 
to hear me will remember that the very greatest 

5 character which he has seen in the course of his life, 
and the person to whom he has looked up with 
the greatest wonder and reverence, was the head 
boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly 
inspires such an awe. The head boy construes as 
lo well as the schoolmaster himself. When he begins 
to speak the hall is hushed, and every little boy lis- 
tens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as me- 
lodiously as Virgil. He is good-natured, and, his 
own masterpieces achieved, pours out other copies 

15 of verses for other boys with an astonishing ease 
and fluency; the idle ones only trembling lest they 
should be discovered on giving in their exercises 
and whipped because their poems were too good. 
I have seen great men in my time, but never such 

20 a great one as that head boy of my childhood : we 
all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I was 
disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he 
was no more than six feet high. 

Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, con- 

25 tracted such an admiration in the years of his child- 
hood, and retained it faithfully through his life. 
Through the school and through the world, whith- 
ersoever his strange fortune led this erring, way- 
ward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was 

30 always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. 
Addison did his best themes. He ran on Addison's 
messages; fagged for him and blacked his shoes: 



1 I ^ ENGLISH H UMO URIS TS 

to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleas- 
ure; and he took a sermon or a caning from his 
monitor with the most boundless reverence, ac- 
quiescence, and affection.* 

Steele fourid Addison a stately College Don at 5 
Oxford, and himself did not make much figure at 
this place. He wrote a comedy, which, by the ad- 
vice of a friend, the humble fellow burned there; 
and some verses, which I dare say are as sublime as 
other gentlemen's compositions at that age; but 10 
being smiitten with a sudden love for military glory, 
he threw up the cap and gown for the saddle and 
bridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, in 
the Duke of Ormond's troop — the second — and, 
probably, with the rest of the gentlemen of his 15 
troop, '' all mounted on black horses with white 
feathers in their hats, and scarlet coats richly 
laced," marched by King William, in Hyde Park, 
in November 1699,^ and a great show of the no- 
bility, besides twenty thousand people, and above 20 
a thousand coaches. '* The Guards had just got 
their new clothes," the London Post said: "they are 

* " Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to 
show it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now 
and then, used to play a little upon him; but he always took it 25 
well." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

" Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world: 
even in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but 
to please and be pleased."— Dr. Young. Spcnce's Anecdotes. 

Steele, it may be noted, was a few weeks older than Addison. 30 
He was born in March, Addison on ist May, 1672. 

t Steele appears to have been a trooper in the Life Guards; but 
in 1699 he had received from Lord Cutts an ensigncy in the Cold- 
stream Guards. In 1702 he became captain in Lucas's regiment, 
which, however, was not called " Fusiliers."— See Aitken's Life 0/ 35 
Steele. 



STEELE 113 

extraordinary grand, and thought to be the finest 
body of horse in the world." But Steele could 
hardly have seen any actual service. He who wrote 
about himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his 
5 debts, his friends, and the wine he drank, would 
have told us of his battles if he had seen any. His 
old patron, Ormond, probably got him his cornetcy 
in 'the Guards, from which he was promoted to be 
a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers, getting his company 

10 through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose sec- 
retary he was, and to whom he dedicated his work 
called the '' Christian Hero." As for Dick, whilst 
writing this ardent devotional work, he was deep 
in debt, in drink, and in all the follies of the town; 

15 it is related that all the officers of Lucas's, and the 
gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.* And 

* " The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene 
between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy The Funeral, or Grief 
a la Mode. Dick wrote this, he said, from ' a necessity of en- 
20 livening his character,' which, it seemed, the Christian Hero had a 
tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the eyes 
of readers of that pious piece. 

[Scene draws and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a fable, — 
Lady Harriet, playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing herself.} 

25 " L. Ha. Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [looking at 
herself as she speaks} as sit staring at a book which I know you 
can't attend. — Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there what he pleases, 
but there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brump- 
ton, out of your head, or making him absent fi'om your eyes. Do 
30 but look on me, now, and deny it if you can. 

" L. Ch. You are the maddest girl [smiling}. 

" L. Ha. Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear 
laughing. [Looking over Charlotte.}— Oh ! I see his name as plain 
as you do — F-r-a-n, Fran, — c-i-s, cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of 
35 the book. 

" L. Ch. [rising}. It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such 
impertinent company— but, granting 'twere as you say, as to my 
Lord Hardy — 'tis more excusable to admire another than oi»eself. 

" i-. Ha. No. I think not, — yes, I grant you, than really to be 



114 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



I 



in truth a theologian in liquor is not a respectable 
object, and a hermit, though he may be out 
at elbows, must not be in debt to the tailor. 



vain of one's person, but I don't admire myself, — Pish ! I don't 
believe my eyes to have that softness. [Looking in the glass."] They 5 
a'n't so piercing: no, 'tis only stuff, the men will be talking. — Some 
people are such admirers of teeth— Lord, what signifies teeth ! 
[Showing her teeth.'] A very black-a-moor has as white a set of 
teeth as I. — No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of 
contradiction in me: I don't know I'm in love with myself, only ^O 
to rival the men. 

" L. Ch. Ay, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that 
rival of his, your dear self. 

" L. Ha. Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name 
that insolent intruder ? A confident, opinionative fop. No, in- ^5 
deed, if I am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both 
sexes, 

* The public envy and the public care, 

I shan't be so easily catched— I thank him— I want but to be sure 
I should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then con- 20 
sider whether he should depart this life or not. 

" L. Ch. Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your 
humour does not at all become you. 

" L. Ha. Vanity ! All the matter is, we gay people are more 
sincere than you wise folks: all your life's an art. — Speak your 25 
soul.— Look you there.— [Hauling her to the glass.] Are you not 
struck with a secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your 
look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in your mien ? 

" L. Ch. Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a 
little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to 30 
correct it. 

" L. Ha. Pshaw ! Pshaw ! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. 
Fardingale, 'tis too soon for me to think at that rate. 

" L. Ch. They that think it too soon to understand themselves 
will very soon find it too late.— But tell me honestly, don't you 35 
like Campley ? 

" L. Ha. The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing 
did not think of getting me so easily.— Oh, I hate a heart I can't 
break when I please. — What makes the value of dear china, but that 
'tis so brittle ?— were it not for that, you might as well have stone 40 
mugs in your closet."— The Funeral, Oct. 2nd. 

" We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [Steele's]; 
there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company 
whom, his Tatlers had not made better by his recommendation of 
them." — Cibber. ^ 45 



STEELE 115 

Steele says of himself that he was always sin- 
ning and repenting. He beat his breast and 
cried most piteously when he did repent: but 
as soon as crying had made him thirsty, he 

5 fell to sinning again. In that charming paper in 
the Tatler, in which he records his father's death, 
his mother's griefs, his own most solemn and ten- 
der emotions, he says he is interrupted by the ar- 
rival of a hamper of wine, '' the same as is to be 

10 sold at Garraway's next week " ; upon the receipt 
of which he sends for three friends, and they fall 
to instantly, " drinking two bottles apiece, with 
great benefit to themselves, and not separating till 
two o'clock in the morning." 

15 His life was so. Jack the drawer was always in- 
terrupting it, bringing him a bottle from the 
*' Rose," or inviting him over to a bout there with 
Sir Plume and Mr. Diver; and Dick wiped his eyes, 
which were whimpering over his papers, took down 

20 his laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed his 
wife and children, told them a lie about pressing 
business, and went off to the " Rose " to the jolly 
fellows. 

When Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came 

25 home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Provi- 
dence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, 
young Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter 
figure than that of his classical friend of Charter- 
house Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some 

30 painter give an interview between the gallant Cap- 
tain of Lucas's, with his hat cocked, and his lace, 
and his face too, a trifle tarnished with drink, and 



Il6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, 
his friend and monitor of school-days, of all days? 
How Dick must have bragged about his chances 
and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and 
the charms of the reigning toasts and popular act- 5 
resses, and the number of bottles that he and my 
Lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked 
over-night at the *' Devil," or the " Garter " ! Can- 
not one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and 
cold grey eyes following Dick for an instant, as he 10 
struts down the Mall to dine with the Guard at 
Saint James's, before he turns, with his sober pace 
and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up 
the two pair of stairs? Steele's name was down for 
promotion, Dick always said himself, in the glo- 15 
rious, pious, and immortal William's last table- 
book. Jonathan Swift's name had been written 
there by the same hand too. 

Our worthy friend, the author of the " Christian 
Hero," continued to make no small figure about 20 
town by the use of his wits.* He was appointed 
Gazetteer: he wrote, in 1703, "The Tender Hus- 
band," his second play, in which there is some de- 
lightful farcical writing, and of which he fondly 
owned in after life, and when Addison was no 25 
more, that there were " many applauded strokes " 
from Addison's beloved hand.f Is it not a pleasant 

* " There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom 
Heaven made his friend and superior, to be at a certain place in 
pain for what he should say or do. I will go on in his further 30 
encouragement. The best woman that ever man had cannot now 
lament and pine at his neglect of himself." — Steele [of himself] : 
The Theatre. No. 12, Feb. 1719-20. 

t The Funeral supplies an admirable stroke of humour, — one which 



STEELE 117 

partnership to remember? Can't one fancy Steele 
full of spirits and youth, leaving his gay company 
to go to Addison's lodging, where his friend sits in 
the shabby sitting-room, quite serene, and cheerful, 

Sand poor? In 1704, Steele came on the town with 
another comedy, and behold it was so moral 
and religious, as poor Dick insisted, — so dull the 
town thought,— that the '' Lying Lover " was 
damned.* 

10 Addison's hour of. success now came, and he was 
able to help our friend the " Christian Hero " in 
such a way, that, if there had been any chance of 
keeping that poor tipsy champion upon his legs, 
his fortune was safe, and his competence assured. 

15 Steele procured the place of Commissioner of 
Stamps: he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so 
kindly always, with such a pleasant wit and easy 
frankness, with such a gush of good spirits and 
good humour, that his early papers may be com- 

20 pared to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a 

Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his 
lectures. 
The undertaker is talking to his employes about their duty. 
" Sahle. Ha, you !— A little more upon the dismal [forming their 

25 countenances] ; this fellow has a good mortal look,— place him near 
the corpse: that wainscot-face must be o'top of the stairs; that 
fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some 
strange misery) at the end of the hall. So— But I'll fix you all my- 
self. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation. Look yonder 

30 —that hale, well-looking puppy ! You ungrateful scoundrel, did 
not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show 
you the pleasure of receiving wages ? Did not I give you ten, then 
fifteen, and twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful f—and the more I 
give you I think the gladder you are ! " 

35 * There is some confusion here as to dates. Steele's first play, 
the Funeral, was brought out in December 1701 ; his second, the 
Lying Lover, in December 1703; and his third, the Tender Husband, 
in April 1705. 



Il8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS ^^^ 

male reader at least, with quite an equal plea- 
sure.* 

After the Tatler in 171 1, the famous Spectator 
made its appearance, and this was followed at 

* " From my own Apartment: Nov. i6. e 
" There are several persons who have many pleasures and enter- 
tainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy; it is, there- 
fore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own 
happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good 
fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state lo 
often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking 
upon the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries 
with it, in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures 
of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. 

" I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend 15 
who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, 
with his family, for the winter; and yesterday morning sent me 
word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at 
that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. 
I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be met by the chil- 20 
dren with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and 
girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I that am 
knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me 
runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaflf. This day 
I was led in by a pretty girl that we all thought must have forgot 25 
me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her 
knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our 
discourse at the first entrance; after which, they began to rally me 
upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my 
marriage to one of my neighbours' daughters; upon which, the 30 
gentleman, my friend, said, ' Nay; if Mr. Bickerstaflf marries a child 
of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference: 
there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine 
a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so 
enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our 35 
youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. 
I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to 
refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in 
your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife 
some of your verses on her.' With such reflections on little passages -,0 
which happened long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and 
elegant meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did also the 
children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand: 
' Well, my good friend,' says he, ' I am heartily glad to see thee; 
I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined 45 
with you to-day again. Do not you think the good woman of the 
house a little altered since you followed her from the playhouse 



STEELE 119 

various intervals, by many periodicals under the 
sanie editor — the Guardian — the Euglishman — the 
Lover, whose love was rather insipid — the Reader, 
of whom the public saw no more after his second ap- 

c to find out who she was for me ? ' I perceived a tear fall down his 
cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the 
discourse, I said, * She is not, indeed, that creature she was when 
she returned me the letter I carried from you, and told me, " She 
hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to 

1 10 trouble her, who had never ofifended me; but would be so much the 
gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he 
could never succeed in." You may remember I thought her in 
earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who 
made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect 
her to be for ever fifteen.' ' Fifteen ! ' replied my good friend. 
' Ah ! you little understand— you, that have lived a bachelor— how 
great, how exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved ! 
It is impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise 
in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent 

(20 woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her 
watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sick- 
ness, which had like to have carried me off last winter. I tell you, 
sincerely, I have so many obligations to her that I cannot, with 
any sort of moderation, think of her present state of health. But, 
as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasure 
beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I 
■was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me 
fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her 
prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more 
30 beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature 
■which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by 
some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the 
same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what 
she was, is heightened by my gratitude for whali she is. The love 

'35 of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that 
name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant 
mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an inestimable jewel ! In her 
examination of her household afifairs, she shows a certain tearful- 
ness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; 
40 and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an ofTence 
not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely 
to you, my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave 
me the quickest joy before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the 
children play in the next room, I know the poor things by theif 
45 steps, and am considering what they must do should they lose thcit 
mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling 
my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the 



I20 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

pearance — the Theatre, under the pseudonym of Sir 
John Edgar, which Steele wrote while Governor of 
the Royal Company of Comedians, to which post, 
and to that of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at 

disposal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward e 
reflection and melancholy.' 

" He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady 
entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, 
told us, ' she had been searching her closet for something very good 
to treat such an old friend as I was.' Her husband's eyes sparkled lO 
with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw 
all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something 
in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, 
and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a 
forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been 15 
talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, ' Mr. 
Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you; I shall still 
live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, 
unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his 
coming to town. You must know he tells me, that he finds London 20 
is a much more healthy place than the country; for he sees several 
of his old acquaintances and schoolfellows are here — young fellows 
with fair, full-bottomed periivigs. I could scarce keep him this 
morning from going out open-brcasied.' My friend, who is always 
extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down 25 
with us. She did it 'with that easiness which is peculiar to women 
of sense; and to keep up the good humour she had brought in 
with her, turned her raillery upon me. ' Mr. Bickerstaff, you re- 
member you followed me one night from the playhouse; suppose 
you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me in the 3^ 
front box.' This put us into a long field of discourse about the 
beauties who were the mothers to the present, and shined in the 
boxes twenty years ago. I told her ' I was glad she had transferred 
so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daugh- 
ter was within half-a-year of being a toast.' 35 

" We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of 
the young lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with the 
noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give 
me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, 
would have put him out of the room ; but I would not part with 40 
him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though he was a 
little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and v. as 
a great master of all the learning on the other side of eight years 
old. I perceived him a very great historian in ^sop's Fables; but 
he frankly declared to me his mind, ' that he did not delight in 45 
that learning, because he did not believe they were true; ' for 
which reason I found he had very much turned his studiss, Usit 



STEELE \2\ 

Hampton Court, and to the Commission of the 
Peace for Middlesex, and to the honour of knight- 
hood, Steele had been preferred ^ soon after the 
accession of George I.; whose cause honest Dick 

5 had nobly fought, through disgrace, and danger, 
against the most formidable enemies, against trai- 
tors and bullies, against Bolingbroke and Swift in 
the last reign. With the arrival of the King, that 
splendid conspiracy broke up; and a golden op- 

lo portunity came to Dick Steele, whose hand, alas, 
was too careless to gripe it.* 

Steele married twke; and o-utlived his places, 
his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and 
almost everything but his kind heart. That ceased 

15 about a twelvemonth past, into the lives of Don Bellianis of Greece, 
Guy of Warwick, ' the Seven Champions,' and other historians of 
that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took 
in the forwardness of his son, and that these diversions might turn 
to some profit. I found the boy had made remarks which might 

20 be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would 
tell you the mismanagement of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the 
passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George 
for being the champion of England; and by this means had his 
thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, 

25 and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when his m.other 
told me ' that the little girl who let me in this morning was, in her 
way, a better scholar than he. Betty,' said she, ' deals chiefly in 
fairies and sprights; and sometimes in a winter night will terrify 
the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to 

30 bed.' 

" I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry 
sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which 
gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every 
one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different 

35 conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must 
confess it struck me with a secret concern to reflect, that whenever 
I go oflF I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood 
I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, ray dog/^ my 
cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me." — 

40 The Tatler. 

* He took what he could get, though it was not much. 



122 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



to trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and 
almost forgotten by his contemporaries, in Wales, 
where he had the remnant of a property. 

Posterity has been kinder to this amiable crea- 
ture; all women especially are bound to be grate- 5 
ful to Steele, as he was the first of our writers who 
really seemed to admire and rerpect them. Con- 
greve the Great, who alludes to the low estima- 
tion in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, 
as a reason why the women of Shakspeare make 10 
so small a figure in the poet's dialogues, though 
he can himself pay splendid compliments to women, 
yet looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, 
and destined, like the most consummate fortifica- 
tions, to fall, after a certain time, before the arts and i5 
bravery of the besieger, man. There is a letter of 
Swift's entitled " Advice to a very Young Married 
Lady," which shows the Dean's opinion of the fe- 
male society of his day, and that if he despised man 
he utterly scorned women too. No lady of our 20 
time could be treated by any man, were he ever so 
much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolent pa- 
tronage and vulgar protection. In this perform- 
ance. Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion 
that a woman is a fool: tells her to read books, as -5 
if reading was a novel accomplishment; and in- 
forms her that " not one gentleman's daughter in a 
thousand has been brought to read or understand 
her own natural tongue." Addison laughs at 
women equally; but, with the gentleness and polite- 3o 
ness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them, 
as if they were harmless, half-witted, amusing-, 



1 



^STEELE 123 

pretty creatures, only made to be men's playthings. 
It was Steele who first began to pay a manly 
homage to their goodness and understanding, as 
well as to their tenderness and beauty.'^ In his 

5 comedies the heroes do not rant and rave about 
the divine beauties of Gloriana or Statira, as the 
characters were made to do in the chivalry ro- 
mances and the high-flown dramas just going out 
of vogue; but Steele admires women's virtue, ac- 

10 knowledges their sense, and adores their purity and 
beauty, with an ardour and strength which should 
win the good-will of all women to their hearty and 
respectful champion. It is this ardour, this respect, 
this manliness, which makes his comedies so pleas- 

15 ant and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid 
the finest complim.ent to a woman that perhaps ever 
was offered. Of one woman, whom Congreve had 
?lso admired and celebrated, Steele says, that " to 
have loved her was a liberal education." '' How 

20 often," he says, dedicating' a volume to his wife, 
" how often has your tenderness removed pain 
from my sick head, how often anguish from my 
afflicted heart! If there are such beings as guar- 

* " As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are 
25 happy in this particular, that with them the one is much more nearly- 
related to the other than in men. The love of a woman is in- 
separable from some esteem of her; and as she is naturally the 
object of affection, the woman who has your esteem has also some 
degree of your love. A man that dotes on a woman for her beauty, 
30 will whisper his friend, ' That creature has a great deal of wit when 
you are well acquainted with her.' And if you examine the bottom 
of your esteem for a woman, you will find you have a greater 
opinion of her beauty than anybody else. As to us men, I design 
to pass most of my time with- the facetious Harry Bickerstaff; but 
35 William BickerstafY, the most prudent man of our family, shall be 
my executor." — Taller, No. 206. 



124 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

dian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot be- 
lieve one of them to be more good in inclination, 
or more charming in form than my wife." His 
breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when 
he meets with a good and beautiful woman, and it 5 
is with his heart as well as with his hat that he sa- 
lutes her. About children, and all that relates to 
home, he is not less tender, and more than once 
speaks in apology of what he calls his softness. He 
would have been nothing without that delightful lo 
weakness. It is that which gives his works their 
worth and his style its charm. It, like his life, is 
full of faults and careless blunders; and redeemed, 
like that, by his sweet and compassionate nature. 

We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered ^5 
life some of the most curious memoranda that ever 
were left of a man's biography.* Most men's let- 

' The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into the 
possession of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, Miss Scur- 
lock of Carmarthenshire. She married the Hon. John, afterwards 20 
third Lord Trevor. At her death, part of the letters passed to Mr. 
Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele's; and part to 
Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. They were published by 
the learned Nichols — from whose later edition of them, in 1809, "our 
specimens are quoted. 25 

Here we have him, in his courtship — which was not a very long 
one: — 

To Mrs. Scurlock. 

" Aug. 30, 1707. 
" Madam,— I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am 30 
forced to write from a coffee-house, where I am attending about 
business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, 
talking of money; while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love ! 
Love which animates my heart, sweetens my humour, enlarges my 
soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer 35 
I owe, that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words 
and actions; it is the natural effect of that generous passion to 



STEELE 125 

ters, from Cicero down to Walpole, or down to the 
great men of our time, if you will, are doctored 
compositions, and written with an eye suspicious 
towards posterity. That dedication of Steele's to 
5 his wife is an artificial performance, possibly; at 

create in the admirer some similitude of the object admired. Thus, 
my dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. 
Look up, my fair one, to that Heaven which made thee such; and 
join with me to implore its influence on our tender innocent hours, 
10 and beseech the Author of love to bless the rites He has ordained 
—and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condi- 
tion, and a resignation to His will, which only can regulate our 
minds to a steady endeavour to please Him and each other. 

" I am for ever your faithful servant, 

" Rich. Steele." 

Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received 
the next one— obviously written later in the day :— . 



15 



" Saturday Night (Aug. 30, 1707). 
" Dear lovely Mrs. Scurlock,— I have been in very good com- 
20Pa"y> where your health, under the character of the woman I love 
best, has been often drunk ; so that I may say that I am dead 
drunk for your sake, which is more than / die for you. 

" Rich. Steele." 

To Mrs. Scurlock. 
25 " Sept. I, 1707. 

" Madam,— It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and 
yet attend business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, 
and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. 

" A gentleman asked me this morning, ' What news from Lis- 
30 bon ? ' and I answered, ' She is exquisitely handsome.' Another 
desired to know ' when I had last been at Hampton Court ? ' I 
replied, ' It will be on Tuesday come se'nnight.' Pr'ythee allow me 
at least to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in 
some composure. O Love ! 

33 " ' A thousand torments dwell about thee, 

Yet who could live, to live without thee ? ' 

" Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all the language 
on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disin- 
terested passion, I am ever yours, 
40 " Rich. Steele." 

Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances 
and prospects to the young lady's mamma. He dates from " Lord 



126 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

least, it is written with that degree of artifice which 
an orator uses in arranging a statement for the 
House, or a poet employs in preparing a sentiment 
in verse or for the stage. But there are some four 
hundred letters of Dick Steele's to his wife, which 5 

Sunderland's office, Whitehall; " and states his clear income at 
£1025 per annum. " I promise myself," says he, " the pleasure of 
an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do things agreeable 
to you." 

They were married, according to the most probable conjectures, \o 
about the 7th Sept. There are traces of a tiflf about the middle of 
the next month; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was im- 
passioned and reckless. General progress, however, may be seen 
from the following notes. The " house in Bury Street, Saint 
James's," was now taken. '5 



To Mrs. Steele. 

" Oct. 16, 1707. 
" Dearest Being on Earth,— Pardon me if you do not see me 
till eleven o'clock, having met a schoolfellow from India, by whom 
I am to be informed on things this night which expressly concern 20 
your obedient husband, 

" Rich. Steele." 



To Mrs. Steele. 

"Eight o'clock, Fountain Tavern: 

" Oct. 22, 1707. 25 

" My Dear,— I beg of you not to be uneasy; for I have done a 
great deal of business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or 
two about my Gazette. 

" Dec. 22, 1707. 
My dear, dear Wife, — I write to let you know I do not come 30 
home to dinner, being obliged to attend some business abroad, of 
which I shall give you an account (when I see you in the evening), 
as becomes your dutiful and obedient husband." 

" Devil Tavern, Temple Bar: 

" Jan. 3, 1707-8. 35 

" Dear Prue, — I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, 
and inclose two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot 



STEELE 127, 

that thrifty woman preserved accurately, and which 
could have been written but for her and her 
alone. They contain details of the business, pleas- 
ures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair; they have 

5 come home to dinner. I languish for your welfare, and will never 
be a moment careless more. 

" Your faithful husband," &c. 

" Jan. 14, 1707-8. 
" Dear Wife, — Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley have 
10 desired me to sit an hour with them at the ' George ' in Pall Mall, 
for which I desire your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you 
. will go to bed," &c. 

"Gray's Inn: Feb. 3, 1708. 

" Dear Prue,— If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls, 

15 let him be answered that I shall call on him as I come home. I 

stay here in order to get Jonson to discount a bill for me, and shall 

dine with him for that end. He is expected at home every minute. 

" Your most humble, obedient servant," &c. 

"Tennis-Court Coffee-house: May 5, 1708. 
" Dear Wife, — I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing 
to you; in the meantime shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg, 
over against the ' Devil Tavern,' at Charing Cross. I shall be able 
to confront the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the satis- 
faction to see thee cheerful and at ease. 
25 " If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither; and let Mrs. 
Todd send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean linen. 
You shall hear from me early i« the morning," &c. 

Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little 
parcels of tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the Tatler made its appear- 
30 ance. The following curious note dates April 7th, 1710: — 

" I enclose to you [' Dear Prue '] a receipt for the saucepan 
and spoon, and a note of £23 of Lewis's, which will make up the 
£50 I promised for your ensuing occasion. 

" I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to 
35 the pleasure I have in your person and society. I only beg of you 
to add to your other charms a fearfulness to see a man that loves 
you in pain and uneasiness, to make me as happy as it is possible 
to be in this life. Risirg a little in a morning, and being disposed 
to a cheerfulness . . . would not be amiss." 

Ay In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being " invited 
to supper to Mr. Boyle's." " Dear Prue," he says on this occasion, 
" do not send after me, for I shall be ridiculous." 



128 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

all the genuineness of conversation; they are as 
artless as a child's prattle, and as confidential as 
a curtain-lecture. Some are written from the print- 
ing-office, where he is waiting for the proof-sheets 
of his Gazette, or his Tatlcr; some are written from 5 
the tavern, whence he promises to come to his wife 
" within a pint of wine," and where he has given 
a rendezvous to a friend or a money-lender: some 
are composed in a high state of vinous excitement, 
when his head is flustered with burgundy, and his 10 
heart abounds with amorous warmth for his darling 
Prue: some are under the influence of the dismal 
headache and repentance next morning: some, 
alas, are from the lock-up house, where the law- 
yers have impounded him, and where he is wait- 15 
ing for bail. You trace many years of the 
poor fellow's career in these letters. In Sep- 
tember 1707, from which day she began to 
save the letters, he married the beautiful Mis- 
tress Scurlock. You have his passionate pro- 20 
testations to the lady; his respectful proposals to 
her mamma; his private prayer to Heaven when 
the union so ardently desired was completed; his 
fond professions of contrition and promises of 
amendment, when, immediately after his marriage, 25 
there began to be just cause for the one and need 
for the other. 

Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon 
their marriage, " the third door from Germain 
Street, left hand of Berry Street," and the next 30 
year he presented his wife with a country house at 
Hampton. It appears she had a chariot and pair, 



I 



STEELE 129 

und sometimes four horses: he himself enjoyed a 
little horse for his own riding. He paid, or prom- 
ised to pay, his barber fifty pounds a year, and al- 
ways went abroad in a laced coat and a large black 
5 buckled periwig, that must have cost somebody 
, fifty guineas. He was rather a well-to-do gentle- 
I man, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his es- 
tates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), 
his income as a writer of the Gazette, and his office 
jo of gefitleman waiter to his Royal Highness Prince 
I George. His second wife brought him a fortune 
j too. But it is melancholy to relate, that with these 
! houses and chariots and horses and income, the 
Captain was constantly in want of money, for which 
[5 his beloved bride was asking as constantly. In the 
course of a few pages we begin to find the shoe- 
maker calling for money, and some directions from 
the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. 
He sends his wife, '' the beautifullest object in the 
20 world," as he calls her, and evidently in reply to 
applications of her own, which have gone the way 
of all waste paper, and lighted Dick's pipes, which 
were smoked a hundred and forty years ago — he 
sends his wife now a guinea, then a half-guinea, 
25 then a couple of guineas, then half a pound of tea; 
and again no money and no tea at all, but a prom- 
ise that his darling Prue shall have some in a day 
or two: or a request, perhaps, that she will send 
over his night-gown and shaving-plate to the tem- 
3oporary lodging where the nomadic Captain is lying, 
hidden from the bailifYs. Oh that a Christian hero 
and .late Captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a 



130 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

dirty sheriff's officer! That the pink and pride of 
chivalry should turn pale before a writ! It stands 
to record in poor Dick's own handwriting— the 
queer collection is preserved at the British Museum 
to this present day— that the rent of the nuptial 
house in Jermyn Street, sacred to unutterable ten- 
derness and Prue, and three doors from Bury 
Street, was not paid until after the landlord had 
put in an execution on Captain Steele's furniture. 
Addison sold the house and furniture at Hampton, J 
and, after deducting the sum which his incorrigible 
friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue 
of the proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't 
in the least angry at Addison's summary proceed- 
ing, and I dare say was very glad of any sale ons 
execution, the result of which was to give him a 
little ready money. Having a small house in 
Jermyn Street for which he couldn't pay, and a 
country house at Hampton on which he had bor- 
rowed money, nothing must content Captain Dick 20 
but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, and 
grander house in Bloomsbury Square: where his 
unhappy landlord got no better satisfaction than 
his friend in Saint James's, and where it is recorded 
that Dick giving a grand entertainment, had a half- 25 
dozen queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon 
his noble guests, and confessed that his servants 
were bailiffs to a man. " I fared like a distressed 
prince," the .kindly prodigal writes, generously 
complimenting Addison for his assistance in the 30 
Tatlcr,—'' I fared like a distressed prince, who calls 
in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone 



STEELE 131 

by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, 
I could not subsist without dependence on him." 
Poor needy Prince of Bloomsbury! think of him 
in his palace with his allies from Chancery Lane 

5 ominously guarding him. 

All sorts of stories are told mdicative of his reck- 
lessness and his good-humour. One narrated by 
Doctor Hoadly is exceedingly characteristic; it 
shows the life of the time; and our poor friend 

lovery weak, but very kind both in and out of his 
cups. 

'' My father," says Doctor John Hoadly, the 
Bishop's son, '' when Bishop of Bangor, was, by 
invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, 

;5 held at the ' Trumpet,' in Shire Lane, when Sir 
Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, hav- 
ing the double duty of the day upon him, as w^ell 
to celebrate the immortal memory of King William, 
it being the 4th November, as to drink his friend 

©Addison up to conversation pitch, whose phleg- 
matic constitution was hardly warmed for society 
by that time. Steele was not fit for it. Two re- 
markable circumstances happened. John Sly, the 
hatter of facetious memory, was in the house; and 

5 John, pretty mellow, took it into his head to come 
into the company on his knees, with a tankard of 
ale in his hand to drink of¥ to the immortal memory, 
and to return in the same manner. Steele, sitting 
next my father, whispered him — Do laugh. It is 

3 humanity to laugh. Sir Richard, in the evening, be- 
ing too much in the same condition, was put into a 
chair, and sent home. Nothing would serve him 



132 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as 
it was. However, the chairman carried him home, 
and got him upstairs, when his great complaisance 
would wait on them downstairs, which he did, and 
then was got quietly to bed." * 

There is another amusing story which, I believe, 
that renowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his j 
successors, have incorporated into their work. Sir i 
Richard Steele, at a time when he w^as much oc- ' 
cupied with theatrical affairs, built himself a pretty lo I 
private theatre, and before it was opened to his ! 
friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the ' 
hall was well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he 
placed himself in the most remote part of the gal- 
lery, and begged the carpenter who had built the 15 
house to speak up from the stage. The man at 
first said that he was unaccustomed to public speak- 
ing, and did not know what to say to his honour; 
but the good-natured knight called out to him to 
say whatever was uppermost; and, after a moment, 20 
the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: 
" Sir Richard Steele! " he said, '' for three months 
past me and my men has been a working in this 
theatre, and we've never seen the colour of your 
honour's money: we will be very much obliged if^S 
you'll pay it directly, for until you do we won't 
drive in another nail." Sir Richard said that his 



* Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote — i 

" Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits. 
All faults he pardons, though he none commits." 30 

This couplet was sent to Hoadly next day in an apologetic letter. 



STEELE 133 

friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't 
Hke his subject much. 

The great charm of Steele's writing is its natural- 
ness. He wrote so quickly and carelessly that he 
5 was forced to make the reader his confidant, and 
had not the time to deceive him. He had a small 
share of book-learning, but a vast acquaintance 
with the world. He had known men and taverns. 
He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with 

10 gentlemen ushers of the Court, with men and 
women of fashion; with authors and wits, with the 
inmates of the spunging-houses, and with the fre- 
quenters of all the clubs and cofifee-houses in the 
town. He was liked in all company because he 

15 liked it; and you like to see his enjoyment as you 
like to see the glee of a boxful of children at the 
pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones 
cf the earth whose greatness obliged them to be 
solitary; on the contrary, he admired, I think, more 

20 than any man who ever wrote; and full of hearty 
applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling 
you to share his delight and good-humour. His 
laugh rings through the whole house. He must 
have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as 

25 much as the most tender young lady in the boxes. 
He has a relish for beauty and goodness wherever 
he meets it. He admired Shakspeare affectionately, 
and more than any man of his time : and according 
to his generous expansive nature, called upon all 

30 his company to like what he liked himself. He did 
not damn with faint praise : he Was in the w-orld and 
of it; and his enjoyment of life presents the 



134 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Strangest contrast to Swift's savage indignation and 
Addison's lonely serenity.* Permit me to read to 

* Here we have some of hi- later letters: — 

To Lady Steele. 

" Hampton Court: March 16, 1716-17. 5 
" Dear Prue,— If you have written anything to me which I 
should have received last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot 
answer till the next post. . . . Your son at the present writing is 
mighty well employed in tumbling on the floor of the room, and 
sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a most delightful 10 
child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also a very great 
scholar: he can read his primer; and I have brought down my 
Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks about the pictures. We 
are very intimate friends and playfellows. He begins to be very 
ragged; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip him with new 1 5 
clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall think for his 
service." 

To Lady Steele. 

[Undated.] 
" You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you 1 20 
know no one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and 
to whom saying the best things would be so little like flattery. The 
thing speaks for itself, considering you as a very handsome woman 
that loves retirement— one who does not want wit, and yet is ex- 
tremely sincere; and so I could go through all the vices which ^5 
attend the good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt. 
But, indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an ex- 
travagant fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to me; 
and that is, that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, 
even at my request, and to make me proud of you, or rather to 30 
indulge the pride I have that you are mine. . . . 

" Your most affectionate obsequious husband, 

" Richard Steele." 

" A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are per- 
fectly well." 35 

To Lady Steele. 

" March 2b, 1717. 
" My dearest Prue,— I have received yours, wherein you give 
me the sensible affliction of telling me enow of the continual pain 
in your head. . . . When I lay in your place, and on your pillow, I 40 
assure you I fell into tears last night, to think that my charming 



STEELE 135 

you a passage from each writer, curiously indicative 
of his pecuHar humour: the subject is the same, and 
the mood the very gravest. We have said that upon 
all the actions of man, the most trifling and the 
5 most solemn, the humourist takes upon himself to 
comment. All readers of our old masters know the 
terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints at 
his philosophy and describes the end of man- 
kind * : — 



10 "Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, 

The world stood trembling at Jove's throne; 
While each pale sinner hung his head, 
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said: 
' Offending race of human kind, 

15 By nature, reason, learning, blind; 

You who through frailty stepped aside, 
; And you who never err'd through pride; 

You who in different sects were shamm'd, 
And come to see each other damn'd; 

20 (So some folk told you, but they knew 

No more of Jove's designs than you;) 
The world's mad business now is o'er, 
And I resent your freaks no more; 
/ to such blockheads set my wit, 

25 I damn such fools — go, go, you're bit ! ' " 

little insolent might be then awake and in pain; and took it to be 
a sin to go to sleep. 

" For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that 
, your Prueship will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher. . . ." 



30 



At the time when the above later letters were written, Lady Steele 
was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this time, 
was much occupied with a project for conveying fish alive, by 
which, as he constantly assures his wife, he firmly believed he 
should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however. 
35 Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She lies 
buried in Westminster Abbey. 

* Lord Chesterfield sends these verses fo Voltaire in a character- 
istic letter. 



136 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Addison speaking on the very same theme, but 
with how different a voice, says, in his famous paper 
on Westminster Abbey {Spectator, No. 26): — 

'' For my own part, though I am always serious, 
I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can 5 
therefore take a view of nature in her deep and 
solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her 
most gay and delightful ones. When I look upon 
the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies 
within me; when I read the epitaphs of the beauti-io 
ful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet 
with the grief of parents on a tombstone, my heart 
melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the 
parents themselves, I consider the vanity of griev- 
ing for those we must quickly follow." ^5 

(I have owned that I do not think Addison's 
heart melted very much, or that he indulged very 
inordinately in the " vanity of grieving.") 

" When," he goes on, '' when I see kings lying 
by those who deposed them : when I consider rival 20 
wits placed side by side, or the holy men that di- 
vided the world with their contests and disputes — 
I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little 
competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. 
And, when I read the several dates on the tombs of 25 
some that died yesterday, and some six hundred 
years ago, I consider that great day when we shall 
all of us be contemporaries, and make our appear- 
ance together." 

Our third humourist comes to speak on the same 30 



STEELE 137 

subject. You will have observed in the previous 
extracts the characteristic humour of each writer — 
the subject and the contrast — the fact of Death, and 
the play of individual thought by which each 
5 comments on it, and now hear the third writer — 
death, sorrow, and the grave, being for the moment 
also his theme. 

" The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele 
says in the Tatler, " was upon the death of my 

10 father, at which time I was not quite five years of 
age: but was rather amazed at what all the house 
meant, than possessed of a real understanding 
why nobody would play with us. I remember I 
went into the room where his body lay, and my 

15 mother sate weeping alone by it. I had my battle- 
dore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin and 
calling papa; for, I know not how, I had some idea 
that he was locked up there. My mother caught 
me in her arms, and, transported beyond all pa- 

2otience of the silent grief she was before in, she al- 
most smothered me in her embraces, and told me 
in a flood of tears, ' Papa could not hear me, and 
would play with me no more: for they were going 
to put him under ground, whence he would never 

25 come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, 
of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief, 
amidst all the wildness of her transport, which me- 
thought struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, 
before I was sensible what it was to grieve, seized 

30 my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of 
my heart ever since." 



138 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Can there be three more characteristic moods of 
minds and men? *' Fools, do you know anything 
of this mystery?" says Swift, stamping on a grave, 
and carrying his scorn for mankind actually beyond 
it. '' Miserable purblind wretches, how dare you 5 
to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how 
can your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths 
of yonder boundless heaven? " Addison, in a much 
kinder language and gentler voice, utters much the 
same sentiment : and speaks of the rivalry of wits, 10 
and the contests of holy men, with the same sceptic 
placidity. '' Look what a little vain dust we are," 
he says, smiling over the tombstones; and catching, 
as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks 
heavenward, he speaks, in words of inspiration al- 15 
most, of '' the Great Day, when we shall all of us be 
contemporaries, and make our appearance to- 
gether." 

The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who 
will speak -his word of moral as Heaven teaches 20 
him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows 
you his beautiful mother weeping, and himself an 
unconscious little boy wondering at her side. His 
own natural tears flow as he takes your hand and 
confidingly asks your sympathy. '' See how good 25 
and innocent and beautiful women are," he says; 
" how tender little children! Let us love these and 
one another, brother— God knows we have need 
of love and pardon." So it is each looks with his 
own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and prays his 30 
own prayer. 

When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors 



STEELE 139 

in that charming scene of I.ove and Grief and 
Death, who can refuse it? One yields to it as to the 
frank advance of a child, or to the appeal of a 
woman. A man is seldom more manly than when 
5 he is what you call unmanned — the source of his 
emotion is championship, pity, and courage; the 
instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent 
and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and 
weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He 

10 is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor the 
deepest of thinkers: but he is our friend: we love 
him, as children love with an A, because he is 
amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the 
cleverest or the wisest of mankind; or a woman 

15 because she is the most virtuous, or talks French 
or plays the piano better than the rest of her sex? 
I own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick 
Steele the author, much better than much better 
men and much better authors. 

20 The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most 
part of the company here present must take his 
amiability upon hearsay, and certainly can't make 
his intimate acquaintance. Not that Steele was 
worse than his time; on the contrary, a far better, 

25 truer, and high-hearted man than most who lived 
in it. But things were done in that society, and 
names were named, which would make you shudder 
now. What would be the sensation of a polite 
youth of the present day, if at a ball he saw the 

30 young object of his affections taking a box out of 
her pocket and a pinch of snuff: or if at dinner, 
by the charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife 



140 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

into her mouth? If she cut her mother's throat 
with it, mamma would scarcely be more shocked. 
I allude to these peculiarities of bygone times as 
an excuse for my favourite Steele, who was not 
worse, and often much more delicate than his 5 
neighbours. 

There exists a curious document * descriptive of 
the manners of the last age, which describes most 
minutely the amusements and occupations of per- 
sons of fashion in London at the time of which we lo 
are speaking; the time of Swift, and Addison, and 
Steele. 

When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Col- 
onel Alwit, the immortal personages of Swift's 
polite conversation, came to breakfast with my i5 
Lady Smart, at eleven o'clock in the morning, my 
Lord Smart was absent at the levee. His Lordship 
was at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive 
his guests; and we may sit down to this meal, like 
the Barmecide's, and see the fops of the last century 20 
before us. Seven of them sat down at dinner, and 
were joined by a country baronet who told them 
they kept Court hours. These persons of fashion 
began their dinner with a sirloin of beef, fish, a 
shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart 25 
carved the sirloin, my Lady Answerall helped the 
fish, and the gallant Colonel cut the shoulder of 
veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sir- 
loin and the shoulder of veal with the exception of 
Sir John, who had no appetite, having already par-S'^ 
\aken of a beef-steak and two mugs of ale, besides 

* Swift's " Polite Conversation." 



STEELE 141 

a tankard of March beer as soon as he got out of 
bed. They drank claret, which the master of the 
house said should always be drunk after fish; and 
my Lord Smart particularly recommended some 
5 excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, which occa- 
sioned some brilliant remarks from that nobleman. 
When the host called for wine, he nodded to one 
or other of his guests, and said, '' Tom Neverout, 
my service to you." 

10 After the first course came almond-pudding, 
fritters, which the Colonel took with his hands out 
of the dish, in order to help the brilliant Miss 
Notable; chickens, black puddings, and soup; and 
Lady Smart, the elegant mistress of the mansion, 

15 finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her plate with 
directions that it should be carried down to the 
cook and dressed for the cook's own dinner. Wine 
and small beer were drunk during the second 
course; and when the Colonel called for beer, he 

20 called the butler Friend, and asked whether the beer 
was good. Various jocular remarks passed from 
the gentlefolk to the servants; at breakfast several 
persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my 
Lady's maid, who warmed the cream and had 

25 charge of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings 
a pound in those days). When my Lady Sparkish 
sent her footman out to my Lady Match to come 
at six o'clock and play at quadrille, her Ladyship 
warned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell by 

30 the way not to stay to get up again. And when the 
gentlemen asked the hall-porter if his lady was at 
home, that functionary replied, with manly wag- 



142 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

gishness, *' She was at home just now, but she's not 
gone out yet." 

After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters 
and soup, came the third course, of which the chief 
dish was a hot venison pasty, which was put before 5 
Lord Smart, and carved by that nobleman. Besides 
the pasty, there was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, 
partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer and wine 
were freely imbibed during this course, the gentle- 
men always pledging somebody with every glass 10 
which they drank; and by this time the conversation 
between Tom Neverout and Miss Notable had 
grown so brisk and liively, that the Derbyshire baro- 
net began to think the young gentlewoman was 
Tom's sweetheart: on which Miss remarked, that 15 
she loved Tom '' like pie." After the goose, some 
of the gentlewomen took a dram of brandy, " which 
was very good for the wholesomes," Sir John said: 
and now having had a tolerably substantial dinner, 
honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the 20 
great tankard full of October to Sir John. The 
great tankard was passed from hand to hand and 
mouth to mouth, but when pressed by the noble 
host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, " No, 
faith, my Lord; I like your wine, and won't put a 25 
churl upon a gentleman. Your honour's claret is 
good enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the 
host said, " Hang saving, bring us up a ha'porth of 
cheese." 

The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of 30 
burgundy was set down, of which the ladies were 
invited to partake before they went to their tea. 



STEELE 143 

When they withdrew, the gentlemen promised to 
join them in an hour: fresh bottles were brought; 
the " dead men," meaning the empty bottles, re- 
moved; and " D'you hear, John! bring clean 
5 glasses," my Lord Smart said. On which the gal- 
lant Colonel Alwit said, '' I'll keep my glass; for 
wine is the best hquor to wash glasses in." 

After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, 
and then they all sat and played quadrille until three 

10 o'clock in the morn.ing, when the chairs and the 
flambeaux came, and this noble company went to 
bed. 

Such were manners six or seven score years ago. 
I draw no inference from this queer picture — let all 

15 moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy 
the moral condition of that society in which a lady 
of fashion joked with a footman, and carved a sir- 
loin, and provided besides a great shoulder of veal, 
a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black 

20 puddings, and a ham for a dinner for eight Chris- 
tians. What — what could have been the condition 
of that polite world in which people openly ate 
goose after almond-pudding, and took their soup 
in the middle of dinner? Fancy a Colonel in the 

25 Guards putting his hand into a dish of bcigncfs 
d'abricof and helping his neighbour, a young lady 
du mondc! Fancy a noble lord calling out to the 
servants, before the ladies at his table, " Hang ex- 
pense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese! " Such were 

30 the ladies of Saint James's — such were the fre- 
quenters of " White's Chocolate House," when 
Swift used to visit it, and Steele described it as the 



144 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

centre of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment, a 
hundred and forty years go! 

Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of 
his day, falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts 
him : — 5 

" Sir John Edgar, of the county of in Ire- 
land, is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick 
legs, a shape like the picture of somebody over a 
farmer's chimney — a short chin, a short nose, a 
short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky coun- lo 
tenance. Yet with such a face and such a shape, 
he discovered at sixty that he took himself for a 
beauty, and appeared to be more mortified at be- 
ing told that he was ugly, than he was by any re- 
flection made upon his honour or understanding. 15 

'' He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of 
very honourable family; certainly of a very ancient 
one, for his ancestors flourished in Tipperary long 
before the English ever set foot in Ireland. He 
has testimony of this more authentic than the Her- 20 
aids' Ofifice, or any human testimony. For God 
has marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, 
and stamped his native country on his face, his un- 
derstanding, his writings, his actions, his passions, 
and, above all, his vanity. The Hibernian brogue 25 
is still upon all these, though long habit and length 
of days have worn it ofif his tongue." * 

* Steele replied to Dennis in an " Answer to a Whimsical 
Pamphlet, called the Character of Sir John Edgar." What Steele 
had to say against the cross-grained old Critic discovers a great 3<^ 
deal of humour: — 

" Thou never didst let the sun into thy garret, for fear he should 
bring a bailiff along with him. . . . 



STEELE 145 

Although this portrait is the work of a man who 
was neither the friend of Steele nor of any other 
man alive, yet there is a dreadful resemblance to 
the original in the savage and exaggerated traits of 

5 the caricature, and everybody who knows him 
must recognise Dick Steele. Dick set about almost 
all the undertakings of his life with inadequate 
means, and, as he took and furnished a house with 
the most generous intentions towards his friends, 

10 the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and 
with this only drawback, that he had not where- 
withal to pay the rent when quarter-day came, — 

" Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly vinegar face, that if 
you had any command you would be obeyed out of fear, from 

15 your ill-nature pictured there; not from any other motive. Your 
height is about some five feet five inches. You see I can give your 
exact measure as well as if I had taken your dimension with a 
good cudgel, which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have 
the good fortune to meet you. . . . 

20 " Your doughty paunch stands before you like a firkin of butter, 
and your duck legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens. 

" Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; 
and while they bark at men of sense, call him fool and knave that 
wrote them. Thou hast a great antipathy to thy own species; and 

25 hatest the sight of a fool but in thy glass." 

Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account 
of a pecuniary service which he did him. When John heard of the 
fact — " 'Sdeath ! " cries John; "why did not he keep out of the 
way as I did ? " 

30 The " Answer " concludes by mentioning that Cibber had offered 
Ten Pounds for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's 
pamphlet; on which, says Steele, — " I am only sorry he has offered 
so much, because the tzventieth part would have overvalued his whole 
carcase. But I know the fellow that he keeps to give answers to 

35 his creditors will betray him; for he gave me his word to bring 
officers on the top of the house that should make a hole through 
the ceiling of his garret, and so bring him to the punishment he 
deserves. Some people think this expedient out of the way, and that 
he would make his escape upon hearing the least noise. I say so 

40 too; but it takes him up half-an-hour every night to fortify him- 
self with his old hair trunk, two or three joint-stools, and some 
other lumber, which he ties together with cords so fast that it takes 
him up the same time in the morning to release himself." 



14^ ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

SO, in his life he proposed to himself the most mag- 
nificent schemes of virtue, forbearance, public and 
private good, and the advancement of his own and 
the national religion; but when he had to pay for 
these articles — so difficult to purchase and so costly 5 
to maintain — poor Dick's money was not forth- 
coming: and when Virtue called with her little bill, 
Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see 
her that morning, having a headache from being 
tipsy over-night; or when stern Duty rapped at the 10 
door with his account, Dick was absent and not 
ready to pay. He was shirking at the tavern; or 
had some particular business (of somebody's else) 
at the ordinary; or he was in hiding, or worse than 
in hiding, in the lock-up house. What a situation 15 
for a man! — for a philanthropist — for a lover of 
right and truth — for a magnificent designer and 
schemer! Not to dare to look in the face the Re- 
ligion which he adored and which he had ofifended: 
to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as 20 
to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had 
trusted him; to have the house which he had in- 
tended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, 
and for her Ladyship's company which he wished 
to entertain splendidly, in the possession of a 25 
bailifif's man; with a crowd of little creditors, — 
grocers, butchers, and small-coal men — lingering 
round the door with their bills and jeering at him. 
Alas for poor Dick Steele! For nobody else, of 
course. There is no man or woman in our time 30 
who makes fine projects and gives them up from 
idleness or want of means. When duty calls upon 



STEELE 147 

uSy we no doubt are always at home and ready to 
pay that grim tax-gatherer. When zvc are stricken 
with remorse and promise reform, we keep our 
promise, and are never angry, or idle, or extrava- 
5 gant any more. There are no chambers in our 
hearts, destined for family friends and' affections, 
and now occupied by some Sin's emissary and 
bailiff in possession. There are no little sins, 
shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, or 

10 disappointed holders of our promises to reform, 
hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door! Of 
course not. We are living in the nineteenth century; 
and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, 
and got into jail and out again, and sinned and re- 

i5pented, and loved and suffered, and lived and died, 
scores of years ago. Peace be with him! Let us 
think gently of one who was so gentle : let us speak 
kindly of one whose own breast exuberated with 
human kindness. 



prior, (5a\\ anb ipope 

Matthew Prior was one of those famous and 
lucky wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, 
whose name it behoves us not to pass over. Mat 
was a world-philosopher of no small genius, good- 5 
nature, and acumen.* He loved, he drank, he 

* Gay calls him — " Dear Prior . . . beloved by every muse." — 
Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece. 

Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently men- 
tioned in the " Journal to Stella." " Mr. Prior," says Swift, " walks lO 
to make himself fat, and I to keep myself down. , . . We often walk 
round the park together." 

In Swift's works there is a curious tract called Remarks on the 
Characters of the Court of Queen Anne [Scott's edition, vol. xii.]. 
The " Remarks " are not by the Dean; but at the end of each is an 15 
addition in italics from his hand, and these are always characteristic. 
Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, " Detestably covetous," 
&c. Prior is thus noticed — 

" Matthew Prior, Esquire, Commissioner of Trade. 

" On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in 20 
his ofifice; is very well at Court with the ministry, and is an entire 
creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom he supports by his advice; is 
one of the best poets in England, but very facetious in conversation. 
A thin hollow-looked man, turned of forty years old. This is near 
the truth." 25 

" Yet counting as far as to fifty his years. 

His virtues and vices were as other men's are. 
High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears, 
In a life party-coloured— half pleasure, half care. 

Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, 30 

He strove to make interest and freedom agree; 

In public employments industrious and grave, 
And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he f 

148 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 149 

sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, 
"'in a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night; on 
his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his right," 
going out of town from the Hague to pass that 
5 evening and the ensuing Sunday boozing at a 
Spielhaus with his companions, perhaps bobbing 
for perch in a Dutch canal, and noting down, in a 
strain and with a grace not unworthy of his Epi- 
curean master, the charms of his idleness, his re- 
lo treat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's son * 
in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Eusby 
of the Rod, Prior attracted some notice by writing 
verses at Saint John's College, Cambridge, and, 
coming up to town, aided Montague f in an attack 
1% on the noble old English lion John Dryden; in 
M ridicule of whose work, '' The Hind and the 
' Panther,'' he brought out that remarkable and fa- 
mous burlesque, '' The Town and Country Mouse." 
Aren't you all acquainted with it? Have you not 
20 all got it by heart? What! have you never heard 
of it? See what fame is made of! The wonderful 
part of the satire was, that, as a natural conse- 



Now in equipage stately, now humble on foot. 
Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust; 
~5 And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about. 

He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust." 
— Prior's Poems. [For my own monument.'] 
* [He was a joiner's son. His uncle was a vintner, and kept the 
Rhenish Wine House in Channel (now Cannon) Row, Westminster.] 
30 t " They joined to produce a parody, entitled The Town and 
Country Mouse, part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his 
old friends. Smart and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece 
is therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the ' Rehearsal.' . . . 
There is nothing new or original in the idea. ... In this piece, 
35 Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest 
share." — Scott's Dryden, vol. i. p. 330. 



150 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

quence of " The Town and Country Mouse," 
Matthew Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at 
the Hague! I believe it is dancing, rather than 
singing, which distinguishes the young EngHsh 
diplomatists of the present day; and have seen them 5 
in various parts perform that part of their duty very 
finely. In Prior's time it appears a different ac- 
complishment led to preferment.* Could you write 
a copy of Alcaics? that was the question. Could 
you turn out a neat epigram or two? Could you 10 
compose "The Town and Country Mouse"? It 
is manifest that, by the possession of this faculty, 
the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign na- 
tions, and the interests of our own, are easily under- 
stood. Prior rose in the diplomatic service, and 15 
said good things that proved his sense and his 
spirit. When the apartments at Versailles were 
shown to him, with the victories of Louis XIV. 
painted on the walls, and Prior was asked whether 
the palace of the King of England had any such 20 
decorations, '' The monuments of my master's ac- 
tions," Mat said, of William, whom he cordially 
revered, " are to be seen everywhere except in his 
own house." Bravo, Mat! Prior rose to be. full 
ambassador at Paris,t where he somehow was 25 
cheated out of his ambassadorial plate; and in an 
heroic poem, addressed by him to her late lamented 
Majesty, Queen Anne, Mat makes some magnifi- 

* [It is doubtful, however, whether Prior's appointment had much 
to do with his literary reputation.] 3^ 

t " He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke 
of Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman," says Johnson, " refused to 
be associated with one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE Igl 

cent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which 
Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, 
is her Majesty's picture; without that he can't be 
happy. 

5 "Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore: 

Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power 
Higher to raise the glories of thy reign, 
In words sublimer and a nobler strain 
May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. 
lo Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, 
The votive tablet I suspend." 

With that word the poem stops abruptly. The 
votive tablet is suspended for ever, like Mahomet's 
coffin. News came that the Queen was dead. 

15 Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, were left 
there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. 
The picture was never got, any more than the 
spoons and dishes: the inspiration ceased, the 
verses were not wanted — the ambassador wasn't 

20 wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from his embassy, 
suffered disgrace along with his patrons, lived un- 
der a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared" in 
Essex. When deprived of all his pensions and 
emoluments, the hearty and generous Oxford pen- 

25 act without a title till the Duke's return next year to England, and 
then he assumed the style and dignity of ambassador." 

He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his 
Epitaph:— 

" Nobles and heralds, by your leave, 
3«» Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, 

The son of Adam and of Eve: 

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher ? " 

But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke. 



152 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

sioned him.* They played for gallant stakes — the 
bold men of those days — and lived and gave splen- 
didly. 

Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, 
after spending an evening with Harley, St. John, sj 
Pope, and Swift, would go of¥ and smoke a pipe 
W'ith a couple of friends of his, a soldier and his 
wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not read his 
late Excellency's poems should be warned that 
they smack not a little of the conversation of his lo 
Long Acre friends. Johnson speaks slightingly of 
his lyrics; but with due deference to the great 
Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, 
the richest, the most charmingly humourous of 
English lyrical poems.* Horace is always in his^S 

* [Prior's poems published (in folio) by subscription brought him 
£4000. Lord Harley (not his father, the Earl of Oxford) added 
;£4ooo to this for the purchase of an estate (Down Hall) in Essex.] 

* His epigrams have the genuine sparkle :— 

The Remedy ivorse than the Disease. 20 

"1 sent for Radcliff; was so ill, 

That other doctors gave me over: 
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, 
And I was likely to recover. 

But when the wit began to wheeze, 25 

And wine had warmed the politician. 
Cured yesterday of my disease, 

I died last night of my physician." 



Yes, every poet is a fool; 

By demonstration Ned can show it; 
Happy could Ned's inverted rule 

Prove every fool to be a poet." 



.SO 



On his deathbed poor Lubin lies. 

His spouse is in despair; 
With frequent sobs and mutual cries 35 

They both express their care. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 153 

mind; and his song, and his philosophy, his good 
sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves 
and his Epicureanism bear a great resemblance to 
that most delightful and accomplished master. In 
5 reading his works one is struck with their modern 
air, as well as by their happy similarity to the songs 
of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his 
verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that 
endless theme to poets, the vanity of human 
lo wishes — 

" So whilst in fevered dreams we sink, 
And waking, taste what we desire, 
The real draught but feeds the fire, 
The dream is better than the drink. 

15 Our hopes like towering falcons aim 

At objects in an airy height: 
To stand aloof and view the flight, ' 
Is all the pleasure of the game." 

Would you not fancy that a poet of our own 
20 days * was singing? and in the verses of Chloe 
weeping and reproaching him for his inconstancy, 
where he says — 

" The God of us versemen, you know, child, the Sun, 
How, after his journeys, he sets up his rest. 
25 If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, 
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast, 

' A different cause,' says Parson Sly, 
' The same effect may give ; 
Poor Lubin fears that he shall die, 
«Q His wife that he may live.' " 

* [Thackeray, however, has ingeniously transposed the order of 
these verses, which, in the original, are not in the metre made 
familiar by a poet of our own days.] 



154 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, 
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come: 

No matter what beauties I saw in my way, 
They were but my visits, but thou art my home ! 

Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war, 5 

And let us like Horace and Lydia agree: 

For thou art a girl as much brighter than her, 
As he was a poet sublimer than me." 

If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore 
study Prior? Love and pleasure find singers in alho 
days. Roses are always blowing and fading — to- 
day as in that pretty time when Prior sang of them, 
and of Chloe lamentinsf their decay — 



She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers 

Pointing, the lovely moralist said: ij- 

See, friend, in some few fleeting hours, 
*Sec yonder what a change is made ! 

Ah me! the blooming pride of May 

And that of Beauty are but one: 
At morn both flourish, bright and gay, 20 

Both fade at evening, pale and gone. 

At dawn poor Stella danced and sung, 
The amorous youth around her bowed: 

At night her fatal knell was rung: 

I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. 25 

Such as she is who died to-day. 

Such I, alas, may be to-morrow: 
Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display 

The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow." 



Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf 30 
lie lightly on him! " Deus sit propitius huic 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 1 55 

potatori," as Walter de Mapes sang.* Perhaps 
Samuel Johnson, who spoke slightingly of Prior's 
verses, enjoyed them more than he was willing to 

* Prior to Sir Thomas Hanmer. 

5 " Aug. 4, 1709. 

" Dear Sir, — Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed 

and cherished by correspondence; but with that additional benefit 

I am of opinion it will look more cheerful and thrive better: for in 

this case, as in love, though a man is sure of his own constancy, 

10 yet his happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of 
another, and while you and Chloe are alive, 'tis not enough that I 
love you both, except I am sure you both love me again; and as 
one of her scrawls fortifies my mind more against afBiction than 
all Epictetus, with Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your 

^5 single letter gave me more real pleasure than all the works of 
Plato. ... I must return my answer to your very kind question 
concerning my health. The Bath waters have done a good deal 
towards the recovery of it, and the great specific, Cape cahalhim, 
will, I think, confirm it. Upon this head I must tell you that my 

~ mare Betty grows blind, and may one day, by breaking my neck, 
perfect my cvire: if at Rixham fair any pretty nagg that is between 
thirteen and fourteen hands presented himself, and you would be 
pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride 
him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just 

25 as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with 
a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray 
be pleased to cast your eye on her for me too. You see, sir, the 
great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put 
two such commissions in your hand. . . ." — The Hanmer Corre- 

30 spondence, p. 120. 

From Mr. Prior. 

" Paris: ist-izth May, 1714. 
"My dear Lord and Friend, — Matthew never had so great 
occasion to write a word to Henry as now: it is noised here that 

33 I am soon to return. The question that I wish I could answer to 
the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to whom I 
made your compliments in the manner you commanded) is, what 
is done for me; and to what I am recalled ? It may look like a 
bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like me ? but it is 

40 not such: what is to become of a person who had the honour to be 
chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with 
what the Queen designed should make the peace; returning with 
the Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and one 
of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, 

45 n'importe) ; having been left by him in the greatest character (that 
of her Majesty's Plenipotentiary), exercising that power conjointly 



156 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



own. The old moralist had studied them as well 
as Mr. Thomas Moore, and defended them and 
showed that he remembered them very well too, 

with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his departure; 
having here received more distinguished honour than any Minister, 5 
except an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never given 
to any but who had that character; having had all the success that 
could be expected; having (God be thanked !) spared no pains, 
at a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honourable — 
at a time when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord lO 
Bolingbroke First Secretary of State ? This unfortunate person, 
I say, neglected, forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the 
Queen satisfied with his services, or his friends concerned as to his 
fortune. 

" Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, 15 
by a pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the 
late Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry 
about me. God forbid, my Lord, that I should need any foreign in- 
tercession, or owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the 
decency of behaviour and the returns of common civility: some say 20 
I am to go to Baden, others that I am to be added to the Com- 
missioners for settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but 
in the meantime, die aliquid de tribus capellis. Neither of these two 
are, I presume, honours or rewards, neither of them (let me say 
to my dear Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me) 25 
are what Drift may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was 
his fellow-clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiring to 
lessen the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily 
esteem and love him; but in this trade of ours, my Lord, in whicfi 
you are the general, as in that of the soldiery, there is a certain 30 
right acquired by time and long service. You would do anything 
for your Queen's service, but you would not be contented to 
descend, and be degraded to a charge, no way proportioned to 
that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr. Ross, though he 
would charge a party with a halbard in his hand, would be con- 35 
tent all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord Dartmouth, 
from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of Trade, or 
from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself kindly 
used to be returned again to be Commissioner ? In short, my 
Lord, you have put me above myself, and if I am to return 1040 
myself, I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. 
I am sure, my Lord, you will make the best use you can of this 
hint for my good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for 
her Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, 
that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may 45 
think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare 
not stand by me. If nothing is to be done, fiat voluntas Dei. I 
have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having im- 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE I S7 

on an occasion when their nioraUty was called in 
question by that noted puritan, James Boswell, Es- 
quire, of Auchinleck.* 

In the great society of the wits, John Gay de- 
5 served to be a favourite, and to have a good place.f 

plored your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remon- 
strance of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my Lord, all 
honour, health, and pleasure to you. 

" Yours ever, Matt. 

lO " F.5".— Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths 
together in usquebaugh after our tea: we are the greatest friends 
alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the ' Book of 
Travels ' you mentioned; if there be, let friend Tilson send us 
more particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson 

15 can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some 
comfortable tidings." — Bolingbrokc's Letters. 

* " I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; 
Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales's censure of 
Prior in his preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various 

20 hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, 
where he mentions ' these impure tales, which will be the eternal 
opprobrium of their ingenious author.' Johnson: 'Sir, Lord Hales 
has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. 
If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be more combustible than 

25 other people.' I instanced the tale of ' Paulo Purganti and his wife.' 
Johnson: ' Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to 
be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir. Prior is a 
lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library." 
— Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

.30 I Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects 
not being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk- 
mercer in London. He was born in 1688 — Pope's year [It has been 
lately shown that Gay was born in 1685], and in 1712 the Duchess 
of Monmouth made him her secretary; Next year he published his 

35 Rural Sports, which he dedicated to Pope, and so made an acquain- 
tance which became a memorable friendship. 

" Gay," says Pope, " was quite a natural man, — wholly without art 
or design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. 
He dangled for twenty years about a Court, and at last was offered 

40 to be made usher to the young princesses. Secretary Craggs made 
Gay a present of stock in the South Sea year; and he was once 
worth £20,000, but lost it all again. He got about £400 by the first 
' Beggar's Opera,' and ;£iioo or £1200 by the second. He was 
negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queensberry 

45 took his money into his keeping, and let him only have what was 



IS8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

In his set all were fond of him. His success of- 
fended nobody. He missed a fortune once or twice. 
He was talked of for Court favour, and hoped to 
win it; but the Court favour jilted him. Craggs 
gave him some South Sea stock; and at one time 5 
Gay had very nearly made his fortune. But For- 
tune shook her swift wings and jilted him too: and 
so his friends, instead of being angry with him, and 
jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest Gay. 
In the portraits of the literary worthies of the early 10 
part of the last century, Gay's face is the pleasantest 
perhaps of all. It appears adorned with neither 
periwig nor nightcap (the full dress and neglige of 
learning, without which the painters of those days 
scarcely ever portrayed wits), and he laughs at you 15 
over his shoulder with an honest boyish glee — an 
artless sweet humour. He was so kind, so gentle, 
so jocular, so delightfully brisk at times, so dismally 
woebegone at others, such a natural good creature, 
that the Giants loved him. The great Swift was 20 
gentle and sportive with him,* as the enormous 
Brobdingnag maids of honour were with little Gul- 
liver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,t and \ 
sport, and bark, and caper, without offending the 

necessary out of it, and, as he lived with them, he could not have 25 
occasion for much. He died worth upwards of ;£3ooo."— Pope. 
Spcnce's Anecdotes. 

Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as 
ever I knew."— Swift, To Lady Betty Germaine, Jan. 1733. 

t " Of manners gentle, of aflfections mild; 30 

In wit a man; simplicity, a child; 
With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, 
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age; 
Above temptation in a low estate, 
And uncorrupted e'en among the great: 35 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 1 59 

most thin-skinned of poets and men; and when he 
was jilted in that httle Court affair of which we 
have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons the Duke 
and Duchess of Oueensberry * (the " Kitty, beau- 

c A safe companion, and an easy friend, 

Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. 
These are thy honours; not that here thy bust 
Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust; 
But that the worthy and the good shall say, 
lO Striking their pensive bosoms, * Here lies Gay.' " 

— Pope's Epitaph on Gay. 

" A hare who in a civil way. 
Complied with everything, like Gay." 

—Fables, " The Hare and many Friends." 
15 * " I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope curiously, " since 
he was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess." — Works, Roscoe's 
ed., vol. ix. p. 392. 

Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen 
Anne brought back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him 
20 the Secretaryship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a 
short tenure. 

Gay's Court prospects were never happy from this time.— His 
dedication of the Shepherd's Week to Bolingbroke, Swift used to 
call the " original sin " which had hurt him with the house of 
25 Hanover: — 

" Sept. 23, 1714. 
" Dear Mr. Gay,— Welcome to your native soil ! welcome to your 
friends ! thrice welcome to me ! whether returned in glory, blest 
with Court interest, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled 

.30 with agreeable hopes; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of 
the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future; whether returned 
a triumphant Whig, or a desponding Tory, equally all hail ! equally 
beloved and welcome to me ! If happy, I am to partake in your 

^_ elevation; if unhappy, you have still a warm corner in my heart, 

35 and a retreat at Binfield in the worst of times at your service. If 
you are a Tory, or thought so by any man, I know it can proceed 
from nothing but your gratitude to a few people who endeavoured 
to serve you, and whose politics were never your concern. If you 
are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think your principles and 

40 mine (as brother poets) hsd ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know 
you will be an honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, 
I know you are incapable of being so much of either party as to be 
good for nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are or in 
whatever state you are, all hail ! 

45 " One or two of your own friends complained they had heard 
nothing from you since the Queen's death; I told them no man 



l6o ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

tifiil and young," of Prior) pleaded his cause with 
indignation, and quitted the Court in a huff, carry- 
ing off with them into their retirement their kind 
gentle protege. With these kind lordly folks, a real 
Duke and Duchess, as delightful as those who har- 5 

living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet I had not once written to 
him in all his voyage. This I thought a convincing proof how 
truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so every 
month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your 
excuse, as men who really value one another will never want such lO 
as make their friends and themselves easy. The late universal con- 
cern in public affairs threw us all into a hurry of spirits: even I, 
who am more a philosopher than to expect anything from any reign, 
was borne away with the current, and full of the expectation of the 
successor. During your journeys, I knew not whither to aim a 15 
letter after you; that was a sort of shooting flying: add to this the 
demand Homer had vipon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides 
learned notes, all which are at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice 
with me, O my friend ! that my labour is over; come and make 
merry with me in much feasting. We will feed among the lilies (by 20 
the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not the Rosalindas of Britain as 
charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague ? or have the two great 
Pastoral poets of our nation renounced love at the same time ? for 
Philips, immortal Philips, hath deserted, yea, and in a rustic manner 
kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnell and I have been inseparable ever ^5 
since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as 
I heartily hope, better engaged) your coming would be the greatest 
pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall 
support his children. I beg a line from you, directed to the Post- 
house in Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill state of health. 3^ 

" Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write 
something on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot 
you may be with the Court, this can do no harm. I shall never know 
where to end, and am confoimded in the many things I have to say 
to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, entirely, 35 
as ever, 

" Your," &c. 

Gay took the advice " in the poetical way," and published " An 
Epistle to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness 
the Princess of Wales." But though this brought him access to 40 
Court, and the attendance of the Prince and Princess at his farce 
of the " What d'ye call it ? " it did not bring him a place. On the 
accession of George II., he was offered the situation of Gentleman 
Usher to the Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years 
old) ; but " by this offer," says Johnson, " he thought himself 45 
insulted." 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE l6l 

boured Don Quixote, and loved that dear old 
Sancho, Gay lived, and was lapped in cotton, and 
had his plate of chicken, and his saucer of cream, 
and frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, 
5 and so ended.* He became very melancholy and 
lazy, sadly plethoric, and only occasionally divert- 
ing in his latter days. But everybody loved him, 
and the remembrance of his. pretty little tricks ; and 
the raging old Dean of Saint Patrick's, chafing in 

lohis banishment, was afraid to open the letter which 
Pope wrote him announcing the sad news of the 
death of Gay.f 

Swift's letters to him are beautiful; and having 
no purpose but kindness in writing to him, no party 

15 aim to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak, every 
word the Dean says to his favourite is natural, 
trustworthy, and kindly. His admiration for Gay's 

* " Gay was a great eater.— As the French philosopher used to 
prove his existence by Cogito, ergo sum, the greatest proof of Gay's 
20 existence is, Edit, ergo est." — Congreve, in a letter to Pope. Spence's 
Anecdotes. 

t Swift endorsed the letter—" On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; 
received Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse fore- 
boding some misfortune." 
25 " It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord 
Bolingbroke, and obtained his patronage." — Scott's Swift, vol. i. 
p. 156. 

Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus:— 

" iDec. 5, 1732.1 
30 "... One of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had is 
broken all on a sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. 
An inflammatory fever hurried him out of this life in three days. . . . 
He asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment by the 
inflammation in his bowels and breast. . . . His sisters, we suppose, 
35 will be his heirs, who are two widows. . . . Good God ! how often 
are we to die before we go quite off this stage ? In every friend we 
lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we 
have left ! few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of 
all." 



1 62 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

parts and honesty, and his laughter at his weak- 
nesses, were ahke just and genuine. He paints his 
character in wonderful pleasant traits of jocular 
satire. " I writ lately to Mr. Pope," Swift says, 
writing to Gay: " I wish you had a little villakin 5 
in his neighbourhood; but you are yet too volatile, 
and any lady with a coach and six horses would 
carry you to Japan." ''.If your ramble," says Swift, 
in another letter, " was on horseback, I am glad of 
it, on account of your health; but I know your arts 10 
of patching up a journey between stage-coaches 
and friends' coaches — for you are as arrant a 
cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. I have often 
had it in my head to put it into yours, that you 
ought to have some great work in scheme, which 15 
may take up seven years to finish, besides two or 
three under-ones that may add another thousand 
pounds to your stock. And then I shall be in less 
pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but 
you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without 20 
considering that the interest of a whole thousand 
pounds brings you but half-a-crown a day." And 
then Swift goes off from Gay to pay some grand 
compliments to her Grace the Duchess of Queens- 
berry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and 25 
in whose radiance the Dean would have liked to 
warm himself too. 

But we have Gay here before us, in these letters 
— lazy, kindly, uncommonly idle; rather slovenly, 
I'm afraid; for ever eating and saying good things; 30 
a little round French abbe of a man, sleek, soft- 
handed, and soft-hearted. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 1 63 

Our object In these lectures is rather to describe 
the men than their works ; or to deal with the latter 
only in as far as they seem to illustrate the charac- 
ter of their writers. Mr. Gay's " Fables " which 
5 were written to benefit that amiable Prince the 
Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen and 
CuUoden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse 
since a period of very early youth; and it must be 
confessed that they did not effect much benefit 

10 upon the illustrious young Prince, whose manners 
diey were intended to mollify, and whose natural 
ferocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps pro- 
posed to restrain. But the six pastorals called the 
'^ Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of 

i5 *' Trivia," any man fond of lazy literature will find 
delightful at the present day, and must read from 
beginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry 
what charming little -Dresden china figures are to 
sculpture: graceful, minikin, fantastic; with a cer- 

20 tain beauty always accompanying them. The 
pretty little personages of the pastoral, with gold 
clocks to their stockings, and fresh satin ribands 
to their crooks and waistcoats and bodices, danced 
tlieir loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, 

25 approach the charmer, or rush from the false one 
daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die of 
despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little 
grins and ogles; or repose, simpering at each 
other, under an arbour of pea-green crockery; or 

30 piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed 
with the best Naples in a stream of bergamot. 
Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than that 



104 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

of Philips — his rival and Pope's — a serious and 
dreary idyllic cockney; not that Gay's " Bum- 
kinets " and '* Hobnelias " are a whit more natural 
than the would-be serious characters of the other 
posture-master; but the quality of this true hu- 5 
mourist was to laugh and make laugh, though al- 
ways with a secret kindness and tenderness, to 
perform the drollest little antics and capers, but 
always with a certain grace, and to sweet music — 
as you may have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, with 10 
a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, turning over head 
and heels, or clattering and pirouetting in a pair of 
wooden shoes, yet always with a look of love and 
appeal in his bright eyes, and a smile that asks and 
wins affection and protection. Happy they who 15 
have that sweet gift of nature! It was this which 
made the great folk and Court ladies free and 
friendly with John Gay — which made Pope and 
Arbuthnot love him — which melted the savage 
heart of Swift when he thought of him — and drove 20 
away, for a moment or two, the dark frenzies which 
obscured the lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard 
Gay's voice with its simple melody and artless ring- 
ing laughter. 

What used to be said about Rubini,* qii'il avaii 25 
des larmcs dans la voix, may be said of Gay,t and of 
one other humourist of whom we shall have to 



* [This was said earlier of Mdlle. Duchesnois of the Theatre 
Frangais, who was not beautiful, but had a most beautiful voice.] 

t " Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. * He could play 30 
on the flute,' says Malone, ' and was, therefore, enabled to adapt 
so happily some of the airs in the Beggar's Opera.' "—Notes to 
Spenee. 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 1 65 

Speak. In almost every ballad of his, however 
slight,"^ in the " Beggar's Opera " f and in its vveari- 

* " 'Twas when the seas were roaring 
With hollow blasts of wind, 
5 A damsel lay deploring 

All on a rock reclined. 
Wide o'er the foaming billows 

She cast a wistful look; 
Her head was crown'd with willows 
10 That trembled o'er the brook. 

* Twelve months are gone and over, 

And nine long tedious days; 
Why didst thou, venturous lover — 

Why didst thou trust the seas ? 
15 Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean, 

And let my lover rest; 
Ah ! what's thy troubled motion 

To that within my breast ? 

' The merchant, robb'd of pleasure, 
20 Sees tempests in despair; 

But what's the loss of treasure 

To losing of my dear ? 
Should you some coast be laid on. 
Where gold and diamonds grow, 
25 You'd find a richer maiden, 

But none that loves you so. 

* How can they say that Nature 

Has nothing made in vain; 
Why, then, beneath the water 
20 Should hideous rocks remain ? 

No eyes the rocks discover 

That lurk beneath the deep. 
To wreck the wandering lover. 

And leave the maid to weep ? ' 

35 All melancholy lying, 

Thus wailed she for her dear; 
Repay'd each blast with sighing. 

Each billow with a tear; 
When o'er the white wave stooping, 
40 His floating corpse she spy'd; 

Then like a lily drooping, 
She bow'd her head, and died." 

—A Ballad from the " What d'ye call it ? " 

" What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, 
45 t See foot-note on page 166. 



1 66 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

some continuation (where the verses are to the full 
as pretty as in the first piece, however), there is a 
pecuhar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and melody. It 
charms and melts you. It's indefinable, but it 
exists; and is the property of John Gay's and OH- 5 
ver Goldsmith's best verse as fragrance is of a vio- 
let, or freshness of a rose. 

Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which 
is so famous that most people here are no doubt 
familiar with it, but so delightful that it is always 10 
pleasant to hear: — 

" I have just passed part of this summer at an 
old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's which he 
lent me. It overlooks a common field, where, un- 
der the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers as con- 15 



Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the ' What d'ye call it ? ' * 'Twas 
when the seas were roaring ' ? I have been well informed that they 
all contributed." — Cotvpcr to Univin, 1783. 

t " Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd 
pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was in- 20 
clined to try at such a thing for some time, but afterwards thought 
it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was 
what gave rise to the Beggar's Opera. He began on it, and when 
he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the 
project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of 25 
us; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of 
advice; but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, 
neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, 
who, after reading it over, said, ' It would either take greatly, or be 
damned confoundedly.' We were all at the first night of it, in great 30 
uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by over- 
hearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 
' It will do— it must do !— I see it in the eyes of them ! ' This was 
a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; 
for the Duke [besides his own good taste] has a more particular 35 
knack than any one now living in discovering the taste of the public. 
He was quite right in this as usual; the good-nature of the audience 
appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour 
of applause."— Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 167 

stant as ever were found in romance — beneath a 
spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound 
as it will) was John Hewet; of the other Sarah 
Drew. John was a well-set man, about five-and- 
5 twenty; Sarah a brown woman of eighteen. John 
had for several months borne the labour of the day 
in the same field with Sarah; when she milked, it 
was his morning and evening charge to bring the 
cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not 

10 the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood, for all 
they aimed at was the blameless possession of each 
other in marriage. It was but this very morning 
that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it 
was but till the next week that they were to wait 

15 to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the inter-- 
vals of their work, they were talking of their wed- 
ding-clothes; and John was now matching several 
kinds of poppies and field-flowers to her complex- 
ion, to make her a present of knots for the day. 

20 While they were thus employed (it was on the last 
of July) a terrible storm of thunder and lightning 
arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the 
trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out 
of breath, sunk on a haycock; and John (who never 

25 separated from her), sat by her side, having raked 
two or three heaps together, to secure her. Im- 
mediately there was heard so loud a crack, as if 
heaven, had burst asunder. The labourers, all so- 
licitous for each other's safety, called to one 

30 another: those that were nearest our lovers, hear- 
ing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay: 
they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful 



1 68 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



pair — John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, 
and the other held over her face, as if to screen her 
from the Hghtning. They were struck dead, and 
already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. 
There was no mark or discolouring on their bodies 5 
— only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and 
a small spot between her breasts. They were buried 
the next day in one grave." 

And the proof that this description is delightful 
and beautiful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it 10 
so much that he thought proper to steal it and to 
send it off to a certain lady and wit, with whom he 
pretended to be in love in those days — my Lord 
Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. 
Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador 15 j 
at Constantinople.* 

We are now come to the greatest name on our 
list— the highest among the poets, the highest 
among the English wits and humourists with whom 
we have to rank him. If the author of the " Dun- 20 
ciad " be not a humourist, if the poet of the " Rape 
of the Lock " be not a wit, who deserves to be 
called so? Besides that brilliant genius and im- 
mense fame, for both of which we should respect 
him, men of letters should admire him as being the 25 
greatest literary artist that England has seen. He 

* [This was a natural conjecture, but now appears to be erroneous, 
ine letter seems to have been a joint composition of Gay and Pope 
who were staying together at Lord Harcourt's house. Gay wrote to 
RJ^r.^'^T ' ^^'t v^°P^ '^"* substantially the same letter to Martha 3° 
Blount, Lord Bathurst, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.-See Mr 
Courthope s notes in Pope's Works, vol. ix., 284, 399 ] 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 1 69 

polished, he refined, he thought; he took thoughts 
from other works to adorn and complete his own; 
borrowing an idea or a cadence from another poet 
as he would a figure or a simile from a flower, or a 
5 river, stream, or any object which struck him in his 
walk, or contemplation of nature. He began to 
imitate at an early age;* and taught himself to 
write by copying printed books. Then he passed 
into the hands of the priests, and from his first 
10 clerical master, who came to him when he was eight 
years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and 
another school at Hyde Park, at which places he 
unlearned all that he had got from his first in- 



* " Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favourites, 

15 in the order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about 
twelve years old."— Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

" Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in 
hollands, wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make 
English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being 

20 pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them. ' These 
are not good rhimes; ' for that was my husband's word for verses." 
— Pope's Mother. Spence. 

" I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic 
Poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes and some 

25 of the neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under water 
with a description of the Court of Neptune." — Pope. Ibid. 

" His perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) re- 
duced him in four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, 
after trying physicians for a good while in vain, he resolved to give 

30 way to his distemper; and sat down calmly in a full expectation 
of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote letters to 
take a last farewell of some of his more particular friends, and, 
among the rest, one to the Abbe Southcote. The Abbe was ex- 
tremely concerned both for his very ill state of health and the reso- 

35 lution he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, 
and went immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well 
acquainted, told him Mr. Pope's case, got full directions from him, 
and carried them down to Pope in Windsor Forest. The chief 
thing the Doctor ordered him was to apply less, and to ride every 

40 day. The following his advice soon restored him to his health."— 
Pope. Spence. 



I/O ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

structor. At twelve years old, he went with his 
father into Windsor Forest, and there learned for 
a few months under a fourth priest. " And this was 
all the teaching- I ever had," he said, '' and God 
knows it extended a very little way." 5 

When he had done with his priests he took to 
reading by himself, for which he had a very great 
eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry. 
He learnt versification from Dryden, he said. .In 
his youthful poem of '' Alcander," he imitated every lo 
poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statins, Homer, 
Virgil. In a few years he had dipped into a great 
number of the English, French, Italian, Latin, and 
Greek poets. '* This I did," he says, '' without any 
design, except to amuse myself; and got the Ian- 15 
guages by hunting after the stories in the several 
poets I read, rather than read the books to get the 
languages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led 
me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the 
fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These 20 
five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in 
my life." Is not here a beautiful holiday picture? 
The forest and the fairy story-book — the boy spell- 
ing Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, battling with 
the Cid for the love of Chimene, or dreaming of 25 
Armida's garden — peace and sunshine round about 
— the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him 
at his quiet home yonder — and Genius throbbing 
in his young heart, and whispering to him, " You 
shall be great, you shall be famous; you too shall 30 
love and sing; you will sing her so nobly that some 
kind heart shall forget you are weak and ill formed. 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE I/I 

Every poet had a love. Fate must give one to you 
too," — and day by day he walks the forest, very 
likely looking out for that charmer. *' They were 
the happiest days of his life," he says, when he was 

5 only dreaming of his fame: when he had gained 
that mistress she was no consoler. 

That charmer made her appearance, it would 
seem, about the year 1705, when Pope was seven- 
teen. Letters of his are extant, addressed to a cer- 

10 tain Lady M , whom the youth courted, and 

to whom he expressed his ardour in language, to 
say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and 
affected. He imitated love-compositions as he had 
been imitating love-poems just before — it was a 

15 sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, ex- 
pressed as became it. These unlucky letters found 
their way into print years afterwards, and were sold 
to the congenial J\lr. Curll. If any of my hearers, 
as I hope they may, should take a fancy to look at 

20 Pope's correspondence, let them pass over that first 
part of it; over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters 
to women; in which there is a tone of not pleasant 
gallantry, and, amidst a profusion of compliments 
and politenesses, a something which makes one dis- 

25 trust the little pert, prurient bard. There is very 
little indeed to say about his loves, and that little 
not edifying. He wrote flames and raptures and 
elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu; but that passion probabl) came to a 

30 climax in an impertinence, and was extinguished 
by a box on the ear, or some such rebuflf, and he be- 
gan on a sudden to hate her with a fervour much 



1/2 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

more genuine than that of his love had been. It 
was a feeble puny grimace of love, and paltering 
with passion. After Mr. Pope had sent ofif one of 
his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he made a 
second draft from the rough copy, and favoured 5 
some other friend with it. He was so charmed with 
the letter of Gay's that I have just quoted, that he 
had copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lady 
Mary as his own.* A gentleman who writes letters 
a deux fins, and after having poured out his heart 10 
to the beloved, serves up the same dish rechauffe 
Lo a friend, is not very much in earnest about his 
loves, however much he may be in his piques and 
vanities when his impertinence gets its due. 

But, save that unlucky part of the " Pope Cor- 15 
respondence," I do not know, in the range of our 
literature, volumes more delightful. f You live in 

* [See note on p. 168. Pope, however, was capable of very similar 
performances.] 

t Mr. Pope to the Rev. Mr. Broom, Pulhatn, Norfolk. 20 

" Aug. 29, 1730. 

" Dear Sir, — I intended to write to you on this melancholy 
subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to 
have informed myself and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear 
is, that he felt a gradual decay, though so early in life, and was 25 
declining for five or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, 
the gout in his stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication first 
of gross humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging 
themselves, as he used no sort of exercise. No man better bore 
the approaches of his dissolution (as I am told), or with less osten- ",0 
tation yielded up his being. The great modesty which you know 
was natural to him, and the great contempt he had «for all sorts of 
vanity and parade, never appeared more than in his last moments: 
he had a conscious satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling 
himself honest, true, and unpretending to more than his own So 35 
he died as he lived, with that secret, yet sufificient contentment. 

" As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but 
few; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or thought much 
of the applause of men. I know an instance when he did his utmost 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 173 

them in the finest company in the world. A little 
stately, perhaps; a little apprcte and conscious that 
they are speaking to whole generations who are 
listening; but in the tone of their voices — pitched, 

5 to conceal his own merit that way; and if we join to this his natural 
love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort: at least, I 
have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller 
(which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given 
to Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw 
'O it, a translation of the first book of Oppian. He had begun a tragedy 
of Dion, but made small progress in it. 

" As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no 
debts or legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and my 
lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, and mutual esteem. 
'5 " I shall with pleasure take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, 
deserving, unpretending, Christian, and philosophical character in 
his epitaph. •There truth may be spoken in a few words; as for 
flourish, and oratory, and poetry, I leave them to younger and more 
lively writers, such as love writing for writing's sake, and would 
20 rather show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones of 
any other man. So the elegy I renounce. 

" I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy a 
man, and a friend to us both. . . . 

"Adieu; let us love his memory and profit by his example. Am 
25 very sincerely, dear sir, 

" Your affectionate and real servant." 

To the Earl of Burlington. 

" August 1714, 
" My Lord,— If your mare could speak, she would give you an 
30 account of what extraordinary company she had on the road, which, 
since she cannot do, I will. 

" It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of 

Mr. Tonson, who, mounted on a stone-horse, overtook me in 

Windsor Forest. He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat 

35 of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means accompany 

• me thither. 

'\ " I asked him where he got his horse ? He answered he got it 
of his publisher; ' for that rogue, my printer,' said he, ' disappointed 
me. I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat at the tavern 
40 of a brown fricassee of r.-^bbits, which cost ten shillings, with two 
quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought myself cock- 
sure of his horse, which he readily promised me, but said that Mr. 
Tonson had just such another design of going to Cambridge, ex- 
pecting there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. ; and 

45 if Mr. Tonson went, he was pre-engaged to attend him, being to 
have the printing of the said copy. So, in short, I borrowed this 



174 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

as no doubt they are, beyond the mere conversation 
key — in the expression of their thoughts, their 
various views and natures, there is something 
generous, and cheering, and ennobhng. You are 

stone-horse of my publisher, which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a 5 
debt. He lent me, too, the pretty boy you see after me. He was 
a smutty dog yesterday, and cost me more than two hours to wash 
the ink off his face; but the devil is a fair-conditioned devil, and 
very forward in his catechism. If you have any more bags, he shall 
carry them.' lO 

" I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave the 
boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil, .and, 
mounting in an instant, proceeded on the road, with my man before, 
my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid devil behind. 

" Mr. Lintot began in this manner: ' Now, damn them ! What if 15 
they should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together 
to Oxford ? What would I care ? If I should go down into Sussex, 
they would say I was gone to the Speaker; but what of that ? If 
my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by G-d, I 
would keep as good company as old Jacob.' 20 

" Hereupon, I inquired of the son. ' The lad,' says he, ' has fine 
parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing 
in his education at Westminster. Pray, don't you think Westminster 
to be the best school in England ? Most of the late Ministry came 
out of it; so did many of this Ministry. I hope the boy will make 25 
his fortune.' 

" ' Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford ? ' 'To 
what purpose ? ' said he. * The Universities do but make pedants, 
and I intend to breed him a man of business.' 

" As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his 30 
saddle, for which I expressed some solicitude. ' Nothing,' says he. 
' I can bear it well enough; but, since we have the day before us, 
methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhile under the 
woods.' When we were alighted, ' See, here, what a mighty pretty 
Horace I have in my pocket ! What if you amused yourself in 35 
turning an ode till we mount again ? Lord ! if you pleased, what 
a clever miscellany might you make at leisure hours ! ' ' Perhaps 
I may,' said I, ' if we ride on: the motion is an aid to my fancy; 
a round trot very much awakens my spirits; then jog on apace, and 
I'll think as hard as I can.' \ 40 

" Silence ensued for a full hour; after which Mr. Lintot lugged 
the reins, stopped shott, and broke out, ' Well, sir, how far have 
you gone ? ' I answered, seven miles. ' Z — ds, sir,' said Lintot, ' I 
thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldisworth, in a ramble 
round Wimbledon Hill, would translate a whole ode in half this 45 
time. I'll say that for Oldisworth [though I lost by his Timothy's], 
he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 175 

in the society of men who have filled the greatest 
parts in the world's story — you are with St. John 
the statesman; Peterborough the conqueror; 
Swift, the greatest wit of all times; Gay, the kind- 

5 I remember. Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, three hours 
after he could not speak: and there is Sir Richard, in that rumbling 
old chariot of his, between Fleet Ditch and St. Giles's Pound, shall 
make you half a Job.' 

" ' Pray, Mr. Lintot,' said I, ' now you talk of translators, what 

lO is your method of managing them ? ' ' Sir,' replied he, ' these are 
the saddest pack of rogues in the world: in a hungry fit, they'll 
swear they understand all the languages in the universe. I have 
known one of them take down a Greek book upon my counter and 
cry, " Ah, this is Hebrew, and must read it from the latter end." 

15 By G-d, I can never be sure in these fellows, for I neither under- 
stand Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way: 
I agree with them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that I 
will have their doings corrected with whom I please; so by one or 
the other they are led at last to the true sense of an author; my 

20 judgment giving the negative to all my translators.' ' Then how 
are you sure these correctors may not impose upon you ? ' ' Why, 
I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into 
my shop, to read the original to me in English; by this I know 
whether my first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector 

25 merits his money or not. 

" * I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained 
with S for a new version of Lucretius, to publish against Ton- 
son's, agreeing to pay the author so many shillings at his producing 
so many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and 

30 I gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin; but he went 
directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, word for 
word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did ? I arrested 
the translator for a cheat; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, 
too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the 

35 original.' 

" ' Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics ? ' ' Sir,' said 
he, * nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them: 
the rich ones for a sheet apiece of the blotted manuscript, which 
cost me nothing; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, 

40 and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their 
correction: this has given some of them such an air, that in time 
they come to be consulted with and dedicated to as tiptop critics 
of the town. — As for the poor critics, I'll give you one instance of my 
management, by which you may guess the rest: A lean man, that 

45 looked like a very good scholar, came to me t'other day; he turned 
over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and 
pish'd at every line of it. " One would wonder," says he, " at the 



iy6 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



liest laughter, — it is a privilege to sit in that com- 
pany. Delightful and generous banquet! with a 
little faith and a little fancy any one of us here may 

strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy task as 

every stripling, every versifier " he was going on when my wife 5 

called to dinner. " Sir," said I, " will you please to eat a piece of 
beef with me ? " " Mr. Lintot," said he, " I am very sorry you 
should be at the expense of this great book: I am really concerned 
on your account." " Sir, I am much obliged to you: if you can 

dine upon a piece of beef, together with a slice of pudding ? " — lO 

" Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend 

to advise with men of learning "— " Sir, the pudding is upon the 

table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a 
taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath that the book 
is commendable, and the pudding excellent. ^5 

" ' Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, ' in return for the frankness I 
have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court 
that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not ? ' I 
told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my Lord being one 
I had particular obligations to.—' That may be,' replied Mr. Lintot; 20 
' but by G— if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good 
trial.' 

" These, my Lord, are a few traits with which you discern the 
genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. 
I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my 25 
Lord Carlton, at Middleton. ... I am," &c. 

Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope. 

" Sept. 29, 1725. 
" I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin — into the 
grand mondc—ior fear of burying my parts; to signalise myself 30 
among curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept in re- 
lating to the weight of bread-and-butter through those dominions 
where I govern. I have employed my time (besides ditching) in 
finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my ' Travels ' 
[Gulliver's], in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended 35 
for the press when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a 
printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the 
scheme of our meeting after distresses and dispersions; but the 
chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is^to vex the world 
rather than divert it; and if I could compass that design without 40 
hurting my own person or fortune, I would be the most indefatigable 
writer you have ever seen without reading. I am exceedingly, pleased 
that you have done with translations; Lord Treasurer Oxford often 
lamented that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of 
misemploying your genius for so long a time; but since you will 45 
now be so much better employed, when you think of the world. 



PRIOR, GA Y, AND POPE 177 

enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of 
the past, and hsten to their wit and wisdom. Mind 
that there is always a certain cachet about great 

give it one lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all 
g nations, professions, and communities; and all my love is towards 
individuals— for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love 
Councillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians 
(I will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, 
French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal 

lO called man— although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and 
so forth. 

"... I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of 
that definition animal rationale, and to show it should be only 
rationis capax. . . . The matter is so clear that it will admit of no 

15 dispute— nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in 
the point. . . . 

'• Mr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is 
a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, 
have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and general 

20 conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor 
getting others. Oh ! if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots 
in it, I would burn my ' Travels ' ! " 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift. 

" October 15, 1725. 

25 " I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind an- 
swer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that yon 
incline more and more to your old friends. . . . Here is one [Lord 
Bolingbroke] who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after 
long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content 

30 with returning to his first point without the thought or ambition of 
shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who 
thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distin- 
guished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is 
Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with 

35 the hope of seeing you again than of reviewing a world, every part 
of which he has long despised but what is made up of a few men 
like yourself. . . . 

" Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs— 
and generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was sup- 

40 posed to have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one 
had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the 
devil. . . . 

"Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish 
he had received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke 

45 is the most improved mind since you saw him, that ever was im- 
proved without shifting into a new body, or being patillo minus ab 
angelis. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet 



17^ ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

"^en — they may be as mean on many points as you 
or I, but they carry their great air — they speak of 
common hfe more largely and generously than 
common men do — they regard the world with a 
manlier countenance, and see its real features more 5 
fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare to look 
up at life through blinkers, or to have an opinion 
when there is a crowd to back it. He who reads 
these noble records of a past age, salutes and 
reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may 10 
go home now and talk with St. John; you may 
take a volume from your library and listen to Swift 
and Pope. 

Might I give counsel to myyounghearer, I would 
say to him, Try to frequent the company of your 15 
betters. In books and life that is the most whole- 
some society; learn to admire rightly; the great 
pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men 
admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits 
admire basely, and worship meanly. I know noth- 20 
ing in any story more gallant and cheering than the 
love and friendship which this company of famous 
men bore towards one another. There never has 
been a society of men more friendly, as there never 

again, after so many varieties and changes, after so much of the ->i 
old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that " 
scarce a single thought of the one, any more than a single atom of 
the other, remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we 
should meet like the righteous in the millennium, quite in peace, 
divested of all our former passions, smiling at our past follies, and 30 
content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity. 

^11 ^^d^t'^"ed to have left the following page for i)r. Arbu'thnot to 
hll, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning 
him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter. 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 1/9 

was one more illustrious. Who dares quarrel with 
Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the 
society of men great and famous? and for liking 
them for the qualities which made them so? A 
5 mere pretty fellow from White's could not have 
written the " Patriot King," and would very likely 
have despised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, 
whom the great St. John held to be one of the best 
and greatest of men : a mere nobleman of the Court 

10 could no more have won Barcelona, than he could 
have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,* 

, which are as witty as Congreve : a mere Irish Dean 

* Of the Earl, of Peterborough, Walpole says:— "He was one of 
those men of careless wit and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand 

15 bon-mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and 
hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was 
this lord, of an advantageous figure and enterprising spirit; as 
gallant as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his 
journeys: for he is said to have seen more kings and more pos- 

20 tillions than any man in Europe. . . . He was a man, as his friend 
said, who would neither live nor die like any other mortal." 

;, ■ From the Earl of Pcterhoroiigh to Pope. 

" You must receive my letters with a just impartiality, and give 
grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day; I sink grievously 

25 with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with 
the thoughts of a birthday or a return. 

" Dutiful affection was bringing me to town; but undutiful lazi- 
ness, and being much out of order, keep me in the country: how- 
ever, if alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday. . . . 

30 " You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one 
woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you upon 
this point, I doubt every jury will give a verdict against me. So, 
sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow your pluralities, the 
favourite privilege of our church. 

35 "I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you 

must not think of women in a reasonable way; you know we always 

. make goddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the 

. good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the 
Deity ? 

40 "... I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray, 



l8o ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

could not have written '' Gulliver"; and all these 
men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. 
To name his friends is to name the best men of his 
time. Addison had a senate; Pope reverenced his- 
equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and ad- 5 
miration always. His admiration for Bolingbroke 
was so great, that when some one said of his friend, 
'' There is something in that great man which looks 
as if he was placed here by mistake," " Yes," Pope 
answered, '' and when the comet appeared to us a 10 
month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagina- 
tion that it might possibly be come to carry him 
home as a coach comes to one's door for visitors." 
So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show 
me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that 15 
ever dawdled round a club table so faithful and so 
friendly. 

We have said before that the chief wits of this 
time, with the exception of Congreve, were what we 
should now call men's men. They spent many hours 20 
of the four-and-twenty, a fourth part of each day 
nearly, in clubs and coffee-houses, where they 
dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by 
word of mouth; a journal of 1710 contained the 
very smallest portion of one or the other. The 25 
chiefs spoke, the faithful habitues sat round; 
strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden 
had his headquarters at " Will's," in Russell Street, 

when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, 
in a place as odd and as much out of the way as himself. 3^ 

" Yours." 

Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated 
singer. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE l8l 

at the corner of Bow Street: at which place Pope 
saw him when he was twelve years old. The com- 
pany used to assemble on the first floor — what was 
cslled the dining-room floor in those days — and sat 
5 at various tables smoking their pipes. It is re- 
corded that the beaux of the day thought it a great 
honour to be aUowed to take a pinch out of Dry- 
den's snufifbox. When Addison began to reign, 
he with a- certain crafty propriety — a policy let us 

lo call it — which belonged to his nature, set up his 
court, and appointed the offtcers of his royal house. 
His palace was " Button's," opposite " Will's." * 
A quiet opposition, a silent assertion of empire, dis- 
tinguished this great man. Addison's ministers 

15 were Budgell, Tickell, Philips, Carey; his master 
of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what 
Duroc was to Napoleon, or Hardy to Nelson: the 
man who performed his master's bidding, and 
would have cheerfully died in his quarrel. Addison 

20 lived with these people for seven or eight hours 

every day. The male society passed over their 

punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes about as much time 

as ladies of that age spent over spadille and manille. 

For a brief space, upon coming up to town. Pope 

25 formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his 

* " Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's 
family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house 
on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent 
Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. 
30 It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the 
Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house. 

" From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often 
sat late and drank too much wine." — Dr. Johnson. 
Will's Coffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and " cor- 
35 ner of Russell Street." — See Handbook of London. 



J 



1 82 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

rather too eager and obsequious humble servant.* 
Dick Steele, the editor of the Tatlcr, Mr. Addison's 
man, and his own man too — a person of no little 
figure in the world of letters — patronised the young 
poet, and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope 5 
did the tasks very quickly and smartly (he had been 
at the feet, quite as a boy, of Wycherley's f de- 

* " My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712: I liked 
him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his con- 
versation. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me 10 
* not to be content with the applause of half the nation.' He used 
to talk much and often to me, of moderation in parties: and used 
to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party man. 
He encouraged me in my design of translating the Iliad, which was 
begun that year, and finished in 1718." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 15 

" Addison had Budgell, and I think Philips, in the house with 
him. — Gay they would call one of my eteves. — They were angry with 
me for keeping so much with Dr. Swift and some of the late 
Ministry," — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t To Mr. Blount. 20 

" Jan. 21, 1715-16. 
" I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present 
as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet 
and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, and I doubt not 
he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as his life 25 
was despaired of. Accordingly, a few days before his death, he 
underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two sacraments 
which wise men say we should be the last to receive; for, if you 
observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our cate- 
chism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are 3G 
to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the conscious- 
ness of having, by this one act, obliged a woman who (he was told) 
had merit, and shown an heroic resentment of the ill-usage of his 
next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the lady dis- 
charged his debts; a jointure of £500 a year made her a recompence; 35 
and the nephew was left to comfort himself as well as he could with 
the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our friend 
twice after this was done — less peevish in his sickness than he used 
to be in his health; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him 
had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening be- 40 
fore he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and 
earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request— the last he 
should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her: 
' My dear, it is only this— that you will never marry an old man 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 1 83 

crepit reputation, and propped up for a year that 
doting old wit): he was anxious to be well with 
the men of letters, to get a footing and a recogni- 
tion. He thought it an honour to be admitted into 
\ 5 their company; to have the confidence of Mr. Ad- 
dison's friend Captain Steele. His eminent parts 
obtained f6r him the honour of heralding Addi- 
son's triumph of '' Cato " with his admirable 
prologue, and heading the victorious procession as 

10 it were. Not content with this act of homage and 
admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself by 
assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John 
Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly of- 
fended his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed 

15 to write to Mr. Dennis, and inform him that Mr. 
Pope's pamphlet against him was written quite 
without Mr. Addison's approval.* Indeed, " The 
Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Phrenzy 

again.' I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys 

20 both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent 

which we call humour. Mr. Wycherley showed his even in his last 

compliment; though I think his request a little hard, for why 

should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy 

terms ? 

25 " So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased 

myself to know such trifles when they concern or characterize any 

eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser 

or wittier than others in these sober moments; at least, our friend 

ended much in the same character he had lived in; and Horace's 

30 rule for play may as well be applied to him as a playwright: — 

" ' Servetur ad imum 
Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet.' 

" I am," &c. 

* " Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the 

35 selfishness of Pope's friendship; and resolving that he should have 

the consequences of his ofificiousness to himself, informed Dennis 

by Steele that he was sorry for the insult."— Johnson. Life of 

Addison. 



154 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

of J. D." is a vulgar and mean satire, and such a 
blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire 
to see any partisan of his strike in any literary 
quarrel. Pope was closely allied with Swift when 
he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has 5 
been printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the 
foul marks of the master hand. Swift admired and 
enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious genius 
of the young Papist lad out of Windsor Forest, 
who had never seen a university in his life, and lo 
came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with 
his wit. He applauded, and loved him, too, and 
protected him, and taught him mischief. I wish 
Addison could have loved him better. The best 
satire that ever has been penned would never have 15 j 
been written then; and one of the best characters 
the world ever knew would have been without a 
flaw. But he who had so few equals could not bear 
one, and Pope was more than that. When Pope,, 
trying for himself, and soaring on his immortal 20 
young wings, found that his, too, was a genius, 
which no pinion of that age could follow, he rose 
and left A_ddison's company, settling on his own 
eminence, and singing his own song. 

It was not possible that Pope should remain a 25 
retainer of Mr. Addison; nor likely that after es- 
caping from his vassalage and assuming an inde- 
pendent crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he 
quitted should view him amicably."^' They did not 

* " While I was heated with what I heard, I wrote a letter to 30 
Mr. Addison, to let him know ' that I was not unacquainted with 
this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak of him severely in 
return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; that I should 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 18$ 

do wrong to mislike each other. They but fol- 
lowed the impulse of nature, and the consequence 
of position. When Bernadotte became heir to a 
throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was naturally 

5 Napoleon's enemy. '' There are many passions and 
tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the 
Spectator, speaking a couple of years before the lit- 
tle differences between him and Mr. Pope took 
place, " which naturally dispose us to depress and 

^o vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of man- 
kind. All those who made their entrance into the 
world with the same advantages, and were once 
looked on as his equals, are apt to think the fame 
of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. 

15 Those who were once his equals envy and defame 
him, because they now see him the superior; and 
those who were once his superiors, because they 
look upon him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, 
justly perhaps thinking that, as young Mr. Pope 

20 had not had the benefit of a university education, 
he couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't 
translate Homer, encourage his young friend Mr. 
Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid 
him with his own known scholarship and skill?* 

25 It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of 

rather tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good quali- 
ties; and that it should be something in the following manner.' 
I then subjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my 
satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and never 

30 did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death, 
which was about three years after." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

* " That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us 
highly improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a 
villainy seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men should 

35 have conspired together to commit a villainy, seems, to us, im- 
probable in a tenfold degree," — Macaulay. 



1 86 - ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

the learning of an amateur Grecian, should have a 
high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, and should 
help that ingenious young man. It was natural, 
on the other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's 
friends should believe that his counter-translation, 5 
suddenly advertised and so long written, though 
Tickell's college friends had never heard of it — 
though, when Pope first vv^rote to Addison regard- 
ing his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing of the 
similar project of Tickell, of Queen's — it was lo 
natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having in- 
terests, passions, and prejudices of their own, 
should believe that Tickell's translation was but 
an act of opposition against Pope, and that they 
should call Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's 15 
envy — if envy it were. 

" And were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires, 
Blest with each talent and eat . art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease; 20 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne; 
View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 25 

And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; 
Alike reserved to blame, as to commend, 
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend: 30 

Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged. 
And bO obliging, that he ne'er obliged: 
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 5*5 

And wonder with a foolish face of praise; 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be, 
Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " 



1 



PRIOR, GA y, AND POPE 1 87 

" I sent the verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, 
" and he used me very civilly ever after." No won- 
der he did. It was shame very likely more than 
fear that silenced him. Johnson recounts an inter- 

5 view between Pope and Addison after their quar- 
rel, in which Pope was angry, and Addison tried 
to be contemptuous and calm. Such a weapon as 
Pope's must have pierced any scorn. It flashes for 
ever, and quivers in Addison's memory. His great 

10 figure looks out on us from the past — stainless but 
for that — pale, calm, and beautiful: it bleeds from 
that black wound. He should be drawn, like Saint 
Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As he sent 
to Gay and asked his pardon, as he bade his stepson 

15 come and see his death, be sure he had forgiven 
Pope, when he made ready to show how a Christian 
could die.* 

Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court 
for a short time, and describes himself in his let- 

20 ters as sitting with that coterie until two o'e!!:ick 
in the morning over punch and burgundy amidst 
the fumes of tobacco. To use an expression of the 
present day, the " pace " of those viveurs of the 
former age was awful. Peterborough lived into the 

25 * [This story has been now upset by the researches of Mr. Dilke, 
Mr. Elwin, and others; though, when Thackeray wrote, it was the 
accepted version. There is no reason to suppose that Addison ever 
saw the verses. The statement is part of an elaborate fiction con- 
cocted by Pope, and supported by manufacturing letters to Addison 

30 out of letters really written to another correspondent. The whole 
story may be found in the edition of Pope by Elwin and Courthope, 
and is one of the most curious cases of literary imposture on record. 
It is enough to say that all stain has been removed from Addison's 
character. Thackeray would have rejoiced at that result, though 

35 he would have had to modify some of the eulogy bestowed upon 
Pope.] 



1 88 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

very jaws of death; Godolphin laboured all day and 
gambled at night; Bolingbroke,* writing to Swift, 
from Dawley, in his retirement, dating his letter at 
six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as he says, 
refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time 5 
of his London life; when about that hour he used 
to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, and 
jaded with business; his head often full of schemes, 
and his heart as often full of anxiety. It was too 
hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive, sickly Pope. 10 
He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes to 
me, who wasn't fat.f Swift was fat; Addison was 
fat; Steele was fat; Gay and Thomson were pre- 
posterously fat — all that fuddling and punch-drink- 
ing, that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened 15 
the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of 
that age. Pope withdrew in a great measure from 
this boisterous London company, and being put 
into an independence by the gallant exertions of 

* Lord Boliitgbroke to the Three Yahoos of Ttvickenham. 20 

" July 23, 1726. 

" Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs of 
Parnassus, — Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, 
or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I per- 
suade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this 25 
fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at 
my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety 
of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I 
please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle 
must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give 30 
further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, 
that I shall be in your neighbourhood again by the end of next 
week: by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business 
will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor 
of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, 35 
John, mirth be with you ! " 

t Prior must be excepted from this observation. "He was lank 
and lean." 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 1S9 

Swift * and his private friends, and by the enthu- 
siastic national admiration which justly rewarded 
his great achievement of the " Iliad," purchased 
that famous villa of Twickenham which his song 
Sand life celebrated; duteously bringing his old 
parent to live and die there, entertaining his friends 
there, and making occasional visits to London in 
his little chariot, in which Atterbury compared him 
to " Homer in a nutshell." 

10 '' Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man," Pope 
quaintly said to Spence, speaking of the manner 
and habits of the famous old patriarch of " Will's." 
With regard to Pope's own manners, we have the 
best contemporary authority that they were 

15 singularly refined and polished. With his extra- 
ordinary sensibility, with his known tastes, with his 
delicate frame, with his power and dread of ridi- 
cule, Pope could have been no other than what 
we call a highly-bred person. f His closest friends, 

20 with the exception of Swift, were among the de- 
lights and ornaments of the polished society of 
their age. Garth,* the accomplished and benevo- 

* Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the Iliad sub- 
scription; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke. 

25 Pope realised by the Iliad upwards of £5000, which he laid out partly 
in annuities, and partly in the purchase of his famous villa. John- 
son remarks that " it would be hard to find a man so well entitled 
to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his 
money." 

30 t " His (Pope's) voice in common conversation was so naturally 
musical, that I remember honest Tom Soutberne used always to call 
him ' the little nightingale.' " — Orrery. 

X Garth, whom Dryden calls " generous as his Muse," was a 
Yorkshireman. He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. 

35 in 1691. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, by his 
poem of the " Dispensary," and in society, and pronounced Dryden's 
funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the 



190 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

lent, whom Steele has described so charmingly, of 
whom Codrington said that his character was " all 
beauty," and whom Pope himself called the best of 
Christians without knowing it; Arbuthnot,* one 

" Kit-Cat," and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted 

by George I., with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died " ! 

in 1718. 

* " Arbuthnot was the son of an Episcopal clergyman in Scotland, 
and belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was 
educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London — according to a 10 
Scotch practice often enough alluded to — to make his fortune, first 
made him.self known by An Examination of Dr. Woodward's Account 
of the Deluge. He became physician successively to Prince George 
of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have 
been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humour- 15 
ous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of 
him by the humourists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their 
correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote 
thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift: — 

" Hampstead: Oct. 4, 1734. 20 
" ' My Dear and Worthy Friend,— You have no reason to put 
me among the rest of your forgetful friends, for I wrote two long 
letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The j 
first was about. your health; the last I sent a great while ago, by one 
De la Mar. I can assure you with great truth that none of your 25 
friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart towards you than 
myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and you, among 
the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers and good wishes. 

" ' . . . I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an 
asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most 30 
earnestly desired and begged of God that He would take me. Con- 
trary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had for- 
borne for some years) I recovered my strength to a pretty consider- 
able degree, slept, and had my stomach again. . . . What I did, I 
can assure you was not for life, but ease; for I am at present in the 35 
case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to 
sea — who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an 
absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any 
particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my 
own family and from the kindness of my friends as any man; but 40 
the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a pre- 
sentiment of calamities that are to befall my country. However, 
if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find 
that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I 
cannot imagine why you are frightened from a journey to England: 45 
the reasons you assign are not suiificient — the journey, I am sure. 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE I9I 

of the wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest 
of mankind; Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his 
age; the generous Oxford; the magnificent, the 
witty, the famous, and chivalrous Peterborough: 
5 these were the fast and faithful friends of Pope, the 
most brilliant company of friends, let us repeat, that 
the world has ever seen. The favourite recreation 
of his leisure hours was the society of painters, 
whose art he practised. In his correspondence are 
10 letters between him and Jervas, whose pupil he 
loved to be — Richardson, a celebrated artist of his 
time, and who painted for him a portrait of his old 

would do you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I 
have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my 

15 own experience. 

" ' My family give you their love and service. The great loss I 
sustained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble 
I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper to bear the 
loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a 

20 most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we 
shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last 
moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured 
you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that 
is in this world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It 

25 will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none 
are with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most faith- 
ful friend and humble servant.' " 

" Arbuthnot," Johnson says, " was a man of great comprehension, 
skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with 

30 ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a 
bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; 
a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble 
ardour of religious zeal." 

Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a depart- 

35 ment of which he was particularly qualified to judge: " Let me 
add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of 
Martinus Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule 
of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but 
few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their 

40 allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. 
In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot 
had the principal share. "^See Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopcedia 
Britannica, note to p. 242, and also note b. b. b., p. 285. 



19^ ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

mother, and for whose picture he asked and 
thanked Richardson in one of the most deUghtful 
letters that ever were penned,* — and the wonderful 
Kneller, who bragged more, spelt worse, and 
painted better than any artist of his day.f 5 

It is affecting to note, through Pope's corre- 
spondence, the marked way in which his friends, 
the greatest, the most famous, and wittiest men of 
the time — generals and statesmen, philosophers 
and divines — all have a kind word and a kind lo 
thought for the good simple old mother, w^hom 
Pope tended so affectionately. Those men would 
have scarcely valued her, but that they knew how 
much he loved her, and that they pleased him by 
thinking of her. If his early letters to women are 15 

* To Mr. Richardson. 

" Twickenham, June lo, 1733. 

" As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I 
hoped that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you 
hither. And this for the very reason, which possibly might hinder 20 
you coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank God her death 
was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, 
or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression 
of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to 
behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that 25 
ever painting drew; and it would be the greatest obligation which 
even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could 
come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there be no very prevalent 
obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this; and I 
hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow 30 
morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer 
her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could 
not have written this— I could not (at this time) have written at 
all. Adieu ! May you die as happily ! Yours," &c. 

t " Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his 3b 
nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. ' Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, 
' you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world.' 
' I don't know how great you may be,' said the Guinea man, * but 
I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man much better 
than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.' " 4^' 
— Dr. Warburton. Spence's Anecdotes. 



PRIOR, GA F, AND POPE l93 

affected and insincere, whenever he speaks about this 
one, it is with a childish tenderness and an almost 
sacred simplicity. In 171 3, when young Mr. Pope 
had, by a series of the most astonishing victories 
5 and dazzling achievements, seized the crown of 
poetry, and the town was in an uproar of admira- 
tion, or hostility, for the young chief; when Pope 
was issuing his famous decrees for the translation 
of the " Iliad "; when Dennis and the lower critics 

10 were hooting and assailing him ; when Addison 
and the gentlemen of his court were sneering with 
sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the 
young conqueror; when Pope, in a fever of victory, 
and genius, and hope, and anger, was struggling 

15 through the crowd of shouting friends and furious 
detractors to his temple of Fame, his old mother 
writes from the country, '' My deare," says she — 
" my deare, there's Mr. Blount, of Mapel Durom, 
dead the same day that Mr. Inglefield died. Your 

20 sister is well; but your brother is sick. My service 
to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to 
hear from you, and that you are well, which is my 
daily prayer; and this with my blessing." The 
triumph marches by, and the car of the young con- 

25 queror, the hero of a hundred brilliant victories: 
the fond mother sits in the quiet cottage at home 
and says, " I send you my daily prayers, and I bless 
you, my deare." 

In our estimate of Pope's character, let us al- 

30 ways take into account that constant tenderness 
and fidelity of affection which pervaded and sanc- 
tified his life, and never forget that maternal bene- 



194 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

diction.* It accompanied him always: his Ufe 
seems purified by those artless and heartfelt 
prayers. And he seems to have received and de- 
served the fond attachment of the other members 
of his family. It is not a little touching to read in 5 
Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with which 
his half-sister regarded him, and the simple anec- 
dote by which she illustrates her love. " I think no 
man was ever so little fond of money." Mrs. 
Rackett says about her brother, " I think my 10 
brother when he was young read more books than 
any man in the world;" and she falls to telling 
stories of his schooldays, and the manner in which 
his master at Twyford ill-used him. " I don't think 
my brother knew what fear was," she continues; 15 
and the accounts of Pope's friends bear out this 
character for courage. When he had exasperated 
the dunces, and threats of violence and personal 
assault were brought to him, the dauntless little 
champion never for one instant allowed fear to 20 | 
disturb him, or condescended to take any guard in j 
his daily walks except occasionally his faithful dog j 
to bear him company. " I had rather die at once," 
said the gallant little cripple, " than live in fear of , 
those rascals." 25 1 

As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot 

* Swift's mention of him as one 

" whose filial piety excels 
Whatever Grecian story tells," 

is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better 3^ 
use than he ever intended it for, a propos of this subject. He chari- 
tably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's " fondling an old 
mother — in imitation of Pope ! " 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 195 

asked and enjoyed for himself^a euthanasia — a 
beautiful end. A perfect benevolence, affection, 
serenity hallowed the departure of that high soul. 
Even in the very hallucinations of his brain, and 
5 weaknesses of his delirium, there was something al- 
most sacred. Spence describes him in his last days, 
looking up and with a rapt gaze as if something had 
suddenly passed before him. " He said to me, 
* What's that?' pointing into the air with a very 

lo steady regard, and then looked down and said, with 
a smile of the greatest softness, ' 'Twas a vision ! ' " 
He laughed scarcely ever, but his companions de- 
scribe his countenance as often illuminated by a 
peculiar sweet smile. 

15 *' When," said Spence,* the kind anecdotist 
whom Johnson despised — " when I was telling 
Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. Pope, on every catch- 
ing and recovery of his mind, was always saying 
something kindly of his present or absent friends; 

2o and that this was so surprising, as it seemed to me 
as if humanity had outlasted understanding,^ Lord 
Bolingbroke said, ' It has so,' and then added, ' I 
never in my life knew a man who had so tender a 
heart for his particular friends, or a more general 

»5 friendship for mankind. I have known him these 
thirty years, and value myself more for that man's 
love than ' Here," Spence says, " St. John 

* Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. 
He was a short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of 

iONew College, Oxford, a clergyman, and professor of poetry. He was 
a friend of Thomson's, whose reputation he aided. He published an 
Essay on ihc Odyssey in 1726, which introduced him to Pope. Every- 
body liked him. His Anecdotes were placed, while still in MS., at the 
service of Johnson and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. 

'5 Singer in 1820. 



196 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

sunk his head and lost his voice in tears." The sob 
which finishes the epitaph is finer than words. It 
is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the 
famous Greek picture, which hides the grief and 
heightens it. 5 

In Johnson's '' Life of Pope " you will find de- 
scribed, with rather a malicious minuteness, some 
of the personal habits and infirmities of the great 
little Pope. His body was crooked, he was so short 
that it was necessary to raise his chair in order to 10 
place him on a level with other people at table.* 
He was sewed up in a buckram suit every morn- 
ing, and required a nurse like a child. His con- 
temporaries reviled these misfortunes with a 
strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed 15 
person the butt for miany a bolt of heavy wit. The 
facetious Mr. Dennis, in speaking of him, says, " If 
you take the first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's 
Christian name, and the first and last letters of his 
surname, you have A. P. E." Pope catalogues, at 20 
the end of the " Dunciad," with a rueful precision, 
other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis 
called him. That great critic pronounced Mr. Pope 
a little ass, a fool, a coward, a Papist, and there- 
fore a hater of Scripture, and so forth. It must be 25 
remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and 

* He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through " that long 
disease, my life." But not only was he so feeble as is implied in 
his use of the " buckram," but " it now appears," says Mr. Peter 
Cunningham, " from his unpublished letters that, like Lord Hervey, 3^ 
he had recourse to ass's milk for the preservation of his health." 
It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that he alludes 
when he says— 

" Let Sporus tremble ! — A. What, that thing of silk 
Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's milk ? " 35 



PRIOR, GA F, AND POPE 1 97 

popular institution in those days. Authors stood 
in it in the body sometimes: and dragged their 
enemies thither morally, hooted them with foul 
abuse and assailed them with garbage of the gutter. 
5 Poor Pope's figure was an easy one for those 
clumsy caricaturists to draw. Any stupid hand 
could draw a hunchback and write Pope under- 
neath. They did. A libel was published against 
Pope, with such a frontispiece. This kind of rude 

^° jesting was an evidence not only of an ill nature, 
but a dull one. When a child makes a pun, or a 
lout breaks out into a laugh, it is some very obvious 
combination of words, or discrepancy of objects, 
which provokes the infantine satirist, or tickles the 

^5 boorish wag; and many of Pope's revilers laughed 
not so much because they were wicked, as because 
they knew no better. 

Without the utmost sensibility. Pope could not 
have been the poet he was; and through his life, 

2o however much he protested that he disregarded 
their abuse, the coarse ridicule of his opponents 
stung and tore him. One of Gibber's pamphlets 
coming into Pope's hands, whilst Richardson the 
painter was with him, Pope turned round and said, 

25** These things are my diversions;" and Richard- 
son, sitting by whilst Pope perused the libel, said he 
saw his features " writhing with anguish." How 
little human nature changes! Can't one see that 
little figure? Can't one fancy one is reading 

30 Horace? Can't one fancy one is speaking of to- 
day? 

The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led 



198 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS . , 

him to cultivate the society of persons of fine man- i 
ners, or wit, or taste, or beauty, caused him to ! 
shrink equally from that shabby and boisterous 
crew which formed the rank and file of literature 
in his time: and he was as unjust to these men as 5 
they to him. The delicate little creature sickened 
at habits and company which were quite tolerable 
to robuster men: and in the famous feud between 
Pope and the Dunces, and without attributing any 
peculiar wrong to either, one can quite understand jo 
how the two parties should so hate each other. As 
I fancy, it was a sort of necessity that when Pope's 
triumph passed, Mr. Addison and his men should 
look rather contemptuously down on it from their 
balcony; so it was natural for Dennis and Tibbald, 15 
and Welsted and Gibber, and the worn and hungry 
pressmen in the crowd below, to howl at him and 
assail him. And Pope was more savage to Grub 
Street than Grub Street was to Pope. The thong 
with which he lashed them was dreadful ; he fired 20 
upon that howling crew such shafts of flame and 
poison, he slew and wounded so fiercely, that in 
reading the " Dunciad " and the prose lampoons of 
Pope, one feels disposed to side against the ruthless 
little tyrant, at least to pity those wretched folk on 25 
whom he was so unmerciful. It was Pope, and 
Swift to aid him, who established among us the 
Grub Street tradition. He revels in base descrip- 
tions of poor men's want; he gloats over poor 
Dennis's garret, and flannel nightcap and red stock- 30 
ings; he gives instructions how to find Curll's au- 
thors—the historian at the tallow-chandler's under 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 199 

the blind arch in Petty France, the two translators 
in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge 
Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was 
Pope, I fear, who contributed, more than any man 
5 who ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. 
It was not an unprosperous one before that time, 
as we have seen; at least there were great prizes 
in the profession which had made Addison a Minis- 
ter, and Prior an Ambassador, and Steele a Com- 

lo missioner, and Swift all but a Bishop. The pro- 
fession of letters was ruined by that libel of the 
'' Dunciad." * If authors were wretched and poor 
before, if some of them lived in haylofts, of which 
their landladies kept the ladders, at least nobody 

15 came to disturb them in their straw; if three ot 
them had but one coat between them, the two re- 
mained invisible in the garret, the third, at any 
rate, appeared decently at the cofifee-house and 
paid his twopence like a gentleman. It was Pope 

20 that dragged into light all this poverty and mean- 
ness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to 
public ridicule. It was Pope that has made gen- 
erations of the reading world (delighted with the 
mischief, as who would not be that reads it?) be- 

25 lieve that author and wretch, author and rags, au- 
thor and dirt, author and drink, gin, cowheel, tripe, 
poverty, duns, bailiffs, squalling children and 

* [This statement would require qualification. The Grub Street 
author was probably worse off in the time of Queen Anne than in 
qo the time of George II., and the " Dunciad " really showed that 
he could make himself more effectually unpleasant to his superiors. 
The prizes of Queen Anne's time did not go to the professional 
author, but to the authors who were in a good enough position to 
be on friendly terms with ministers.] 



200 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

clamorous landladies, were always associated to- 
gether. The condition of authorship began to fall 
from the days of the ''Dunciad": and I believe , 
in my heart that much of that obloquy which has ! 
since pursued our calling was occasioned by Pope's 5 
libels and wicked wit. Everybody read those. 
Everybody was familiarised with the idea of the 
poor devil, the author. The manner is so captivat- 
ing that young authors practise it, and begin their 
career with satire. It is so easy to write, and so lo 
pleasant to read! to fire a shot that makes a giant 
wince, perhaps; and fancy one's self his conqueror. 
It is easy to shoot — but not as Pope did. The 
shafts of his satire rise sublimely: no poet's verse 
ever mounted higher than that wonderful flight 15 
with which the " Dunciad " concludes: — * 



" She comes, she comes ! the sable throne behold 
Of Night primeval and of Chaos old; 
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay. 
And all its varying rainbows die away; 20 

Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, 
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. 
As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain 
The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain; 
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd, 25 

Closed, one by one, to everlasting rest; — 
Thus, at her fell approach and secret might. 
Art after Art goes out, and all is night. 
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled. 
Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head; 30 

Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, 
Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. 
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, 
And, unawares. Morality expires. 

* " He (Johnson) repeats to us, in his forcible melodious manner 35 
the concluding lines of the ' Dunciad.' " — Boswell, 



PRIOR, GA V, AND POPE 20I 

Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, 
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. 
Lo ! thy dread empire, Chaos, is restored. 
Light dies before thy uncreating word; 
5 Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, 

And universal darkness buries all." * 

In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, 
to the very greatest height which his sublime art 
has attained, and shows himself the eqtial of all 
fo poets of all times. It is the brightest ardour, the 
' loftiest assertion of truth, the most generous wis- 
dom illustrated by the noblest poetic figure, and 
spoken in words the aptest, grandest, and most 
harmonious. It is heroic courage speaking: a 
^5 splendid declaration of righteous wrath and war. 
It is the gage flung down, and the silver trumpet 
ringing defiance to falsehood and tyranny, deceit, 
dulness, superstition. It is Truth, the champion, 
shining and intrepid, and fronting the great world- 
!o tyrant with armies of slaves at his back. It is a 
wonderful and victorious single combat, in that 
great battle which has always been waging since 
society began. 

In speaking of a work of consummate art one 

>5 does not try to show what it actually is, for that 

, were vain; but what it is like, and what are the 

sensations produced in the mind of him who views 

it. And in considering Pope's admirable career, 

I am forced into similitudes drawn from other cour- 

O * " Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson 
(on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired these lines 
so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered. * And 

i well it might, sir,' said Johnson, ' for they are noble lines.' " — 

i /. Boswell, junior. 



202 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

age and greatness, and into comparing him with 
those who achieved triumphs in actual war. I 
think of the works of young Pope as \ do of the 
actions of young Bonaparte or young Nelson. In 
their common life you will find frailties and mean- 
nesses, as great as the vices and follies of the 
meanest men. But in the presence of the great oc- 
casion, the great soul flashes out, and conquers 
transcendent. In thinking of the splendour of 
Pope's young victories, of his merit, unequalled as loi 
his renown, I hail and salute the achieving genius, 
and do homage to the pen of a hero. 



Ibo^artb, Smollett, anb ffielMna 

I suppose, as long as novels last and authors 
aim at interesting their public, there must always 
be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked 

5 monster his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds a 
champion; bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and 
vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain 
number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the 
last volume, when justice overtakes him and honest 

o folk come by their own. There never was perhaps 
a greatly popular story but this simple plot was 
carried through it: mere satiric wit is addressed 
to a class of readers and thinkers quite different to 
those simple souls who laugh and weep over the 

5 novel. I fancy very few ladies, indeed, for instance, 
could be brought to like '' Gulliver " heartily, and 
(putting the coarseness and difference of manners 
out of the question) to relish the wonderful satire 
of "Jonathan Wild." In that strange apologue, 

the author takes for a hero the greatest rascal, 
coward, traitor, tyrant, hypocrite, that his wit and 
experience, both large in this matter, could enable 
him to devise or depict; he accompanies this vil- 
lain through all the actions of his life, with a grin- 

c ning deference and a wonderful mock respect; and 
! doesn't leave him till he is dangling at the gallows, 

1 203 

I 



204 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

when the satirist makes him a low bow and wishes 
the scoundrel good-day. 

It was not by satire of this sort, or by scorn and 
contempt, that Hogarth achieved his vast popu- 
larity and acquired his reputation.* His art is 9 
quite simple; t he speaks popular parables to in- 

* Coleridge speaks of the " beautiful female faces " in Hogarth's 
pictures, " in whom," he says, " the satirist never extinguished that 
love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet." — The Friend. 

t " I was pleased with the reply of a gentleman, who, being asked lO 
which book he esteemed most in his library, answered ' Shakspeare ': 
being asked which he esteemed next best, replied ' Hogarth.' His 
graphic representations are indeed books: they have the teeming, 
fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at — 
his prints we read. ... 15 

" The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture 
would almost unvulgarise every subject which he might choose. . . . 

" I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have 
necessarily something in them to make us like them; some are in- 
dififerent to us, some in their nature repulsive, and only made inter- 20 
esting by the wonderful skill and truth to nature in the painter; 
but I contend that there is in most of them that sprinkling of the 
better nature, which, like holy water, chases away and disperses the 
contagion of the bad. They have this in them, besides, that they 
bring us acquainted with the every-day human face, — they give us 25 
skill to detect those gradations of sense and virtue (which escape 
the careless or fastidious observer) in the circumstances of the world 
about us; and prevent that disgust at common life, that twdiuni 
quotidianaruni formarum, which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms 
and beauties is in danger of producing. In this, as in many other ."^O I 
things, they are analogous to the best novels of Smollett and Field- 
ing." — Charles Lamb. 

" It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly 
unlike any other representations of the same kind of subjects— that 
they form a class, and have a character peculiar to themselves. It 35 
may be worth while to consider in what this general distinction 
consists. 

" In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, historical 
pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom 
Jones ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it con- 40 
tained a regular development of fable, manners, character, and 
passion, the compositions of Hogarth will, in like manner, be found 
to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which 
have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When l 
we say that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that 45 \ 
his works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FLELDING 20$ 

terest simple hearts, and to inspire them with pleas- 
ure or pity or warning and terror. Not one of his 
tales but is as easy as " Goody Two-Shoes " ; it 
is the moral of Tommy was a naughty boy and the 

5 master fiogged him, and Jacky was a good boy 
and had plum-cake, which pervades the whole 
works of the homely and famous English moralist. 
And if the moral is written in rather too large let- 
ters after the fable, we must remember how simple 

lo the scholars and schoolmaster both were, and like 
neither the less because they are so artless and 
honest. '' It was a maxim of Doctor Harrison's," 
Fielding says, in " Amelia," — speaking of the be- 
nevolent divine and philosopher who represents the 

15 good principle in that novel—" that no man can 
descend below himself, in doing any act which may 
contribute to protect an innocent person, or to bring 
a rogue to the gallozvs.'' The moralists of that age 
had no compunction, you see; they had not begun 

20 to be sceptical about the theory of punishment, and 
thought that the hanging of a thief was a spectacle 

and their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pictures 
has Hfe and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene 
never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play; 

25 the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to its 
utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas 
for ever. The expression is always taken en passant, in a state of 
progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. ... His 
figures are not like the background on which they are painted: 

30 even the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their own. 
Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's 
heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the 
extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect 
truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes his com- 

35 positions from all others of the same kind, that they are equally 
remote from caricature, and from mere still life. . . . His faces go to 
the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we believe in any single 
instance) go beyond it.'"— Haslitt. 



2o6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

for edification. Masters sent their apprentices, 
fathers took their children, to see Jack Sheppard 
or Jonathan Wild hanged, and it was as undoubt- 
ing subscribers to this moral law, that Fielding 
wrote and Hogarth painted. Except in one in- 5 
stance, where, in the madhouse scene in the 
" Rake's Progress," the girl whom he has ruined 
is represented as still tending and weeping over him 
in his insanity, a glimpse of pity for his rogues 
never seems to enter honest Hogarth's mind. lo 
There's not the slightest doubt in the breast of the 
jolly Draco. 

The famous set of pictures called '' Marriage a 
la Mode," and which are now exhibited in the Na- 
tional Gallery in London, contains the most im- 15 
portant and highly wrought of the Hogarth come- 
dies. The care and method with which the moral 
grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable 
as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous 
artist. He has to describe the negotiations for a 20 
marriage pending between the daughter of a rich 
citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squan- 
derfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl. 
Pride and pomposity appear in every accessory sur- 
rounding the Earl. He sits in gold lace and velvet 25 
— as how should such an Earl wear anything but 
velvet and gold lace? His coronet is everywhere: 
on his footstool, on which reposes one gouty toe 
turned out; on the sconces and looking-glasses; 
on the dogs; * on his lordship's very crutches; on 30 
his great chair of state and the great baldaquin be- 

*[There is no coronet on the dogs in the picture. A coronet was 
conferred upon one dog in the engraving.] 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 20/ 

hind him; under which he sits pointing majestically 
to his pedigree, which shows that his race is 
sprung from the loins of William the Conqueror, 
and confronting the old Alderman from the City, 
5 who has mounted his sword for the occasion, and 
wears his Alderman's chain, and has brought a bag 
full of money, mortgage-deeds and thousand-pound 
notes, for the arrangement of the transaction pend- 
ing between them. Whilst the steward * (a Metho- 

lo dist — therefore a hypocrite and cheat : for Hogarth 
scorned a Papist and a Dissenter) is negotiating 
between the old couple, their children sit together, 
united but apart. My lord is admiring his counte- 
nance in the glass, while his bride is twiddling her 

15 marriage ring on her pocket-handkerchief, and lis- 
tening with rueful countenance to Counsellor Sil- 
vertongue, who has been drawing the settlements. 
The girl is pretty, but the painter, with a curious 
watchfulness, has taken care to give her a likeness 

20 to her father; as in the young Viscount's face you 
see a resemblance to the Earl, his noble sire. The 
sense of the coronet pervades the picture, as it is 
supposed to do the mind of its wearer. The 
pictures round the room are sly hints indicating 

25 the situation of the parties about to marry. A 
martyr is led to the fire; Andromeda f is ofifered 
to sacrifice; Judith is going to slay Holofernes. 
There is the ancestor of the house (in the picture 



* [This person is the Alderman's clerk or cashier. The Methodist 
30 steward (a different person) appears in the next picture— the break- 
fast scene.] 

t [This is a mistake. The only person likely to be intended is St. 
Sebastian. Any reference to the incidents is very doubtful.] 



208 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

it is the Earl himself as a young man), with a comet 
over his head, indicating that the career of the 
family is to be brilliant and brief. In the second 
picture * the old lord must be dead, for Madam has 
now the Countess's coronet over her bed and toilet- 5 
glass, and sits listening to that dangerous Counsel- 
lor Silvertongue, whose portrait now actually hangs 
up in her room, whilst the counsellor takes his ease 
on the sofa by her side, evidently the familiar of 
the house, and the confidant of the mistress. My to 
Lord takes his pleasure elsewhere than at home, 
whither he returns jaded and tipsy from the 
" Rose," to find his wife yawning in her drawing- 
room, her whist-party over, and the daylight 
streaming in; or he amuses himself with the very 1 5 
worst company abroad, whilst his wife sits at home 
listening to foreign singers, or wastes her money 
at auctions, or, worse still, seeks amusement at 
masquerades. The dismal end is known. My Lord 
draws upon the counsellor, who kills him, and is 20 
apprehended whilst endeavouring to escape. My 
lady goes back perforce to the Alderman in the 
City, and faints f upon reading Counsellor Silver- 
tongue's dying speech at Tyburn, where the coun- 
sellor has been executed for sending his Lordship 25 
out of the world. Moral: — Don't listen to evil 
silver-tongued counsellors: don't marry a man for 
his rank, or a woman for her money: don't fre- 
quent foolish auctions and masquerade balls un- 
known to your husband : don't have wicked com- 30 
panions abroad and neglect your wife, otherwise 

* [Really the fourth.] 

t [She has taken laudanum and is dead.] 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 209 

you will be run through the body, and ruin will 
ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. The people are 
all naughty, and Bogey carries them all off. In the 
" Rake's Progress," a loose life is ended by a simi- 

5 lar sad catastrophe. It is the spendthrift coming 
into possession of the wealth of the paternal miser; 
the prodigal surrounded by flatterers, and wasting 
his substance on the very worst company; the 
bailiffs, the gambling-house, and Bedlam for an 

10 end. In the famous story of " Industry and Idle- 
ness," the moral is pointed in a manner similarly 
clear. Fair-haired Frank Goodchild smiles at his 
work, whilst naughty Tom Idle snores over his 
loom. Frank reads the edifying ballads of " Whit- 

15 tington " and the " London 'Prentice," whilst that 
reprobate Tom Idle prefers '' Moll Flanders," and 
drinks hugely of beer. Frank goes to church of a 
Sunday, and warbles hymns from the gallery; while 
Tom lies on a tombstone outside playing at " half- 

2open'ny-under-the-hat " with street blackguards, and 
is deservedly caned by the beadle. Frank is made 
overseer of the business, whilst Tom is sent to sea. 
Frank is taken into partnership and marries his 
master's daughter, sends out broken victuals to the 

25 poor, and listens in his nightcap and gown, with the 
lovely Mrs. Goodchild by his side, to the nuptial 
music of the City bands and the marrow-bones and 
cleavers; whilst idle Tom, returned from sea, shud- 
ders in a garret lest the ofhcers are coming to take 

30 him for picking pockets. The Worshipful Francis 
Goodchild, Esquire, becomes Sheriff of London, 
and partakes of the most splendid dinners which 



210 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

money can purchase or Alderman devour; whilst 
poor Tom is taken up in a night-cellar, with that 
one-eyed and disreputable accomplice who first 
taught him to play chuck-farthing on a Sunday. 
What happens next? Tom is brought up before 5 
the justice of his country, in the person of Mr. Al- 
derman Goodchild, who weeps as he recognises his 
old brother 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend 
peaches on him, and the clerk makes out the poor 
rogue's ticket for Newgate. Then the end comes. lo 
Tom goes to Tyburn in a cart with a coffin in it; 
whilst the Right Honourable Francis Goodchild, 
Lord Mayor of London, proceeds to his Mansion 
House, in his gilt coach with four footmen and a 
sword-bearer, whilst the Companies of London 15 
march in the august procession, whilst the train- 
bands of the City fire their pieces and get drunk 
in his honour; and — O crowning delight and glory 
of all — whilst his Majesty the King * looks out 
from his royal balcony, with his riband on his 20 
breast, and his Queen and his star by his side, at 
the corner house of Saint Paul's Churchyard. 

How the times have changed! The new Post 
Office now not disadvantageously occupies that 
spot where the scaffolding is in the picture, where 25 
the tipsy trainband-man is lurching against the 
post, with his wig over one eye, and the 'prentice- 
boy is trying to kiss the pretty girl in the gallery. 
Passed away 'prentice-boy and pretty girl! Passed 
away tipsy trainband-man with wig and bandolier! 30 
On the spot where Tom Idle (for whom I have an 

* [Really Frederick, Prince of Wales, with the Princess of Wales.] 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 211 

unaffected pity) made his exit from this wicked 
world, and where you see the hangman smoking 
his pipe as he recHnes on the gibbet and views the 
hills of Harrow or Hampstead beyond, a splendid 

5 marble arch, a vast and modern city — clean, airy, 
painted drab, populous with nursery-maids and 
children, the abode of wealth and comfort — the 
elegant, the prosperous, the polite Tyburnia rises, 
the most respectable district in the habitable globe. 

lo In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in 
which the apotheosis of the Right Honourable 
Francis Goodchild is drawn, a ragged fellow is rep- 
resented in the corner of the simple, kindly piece, 
offering" for sale a broadside, purporting to contain 

'5 an account of the appearance of the ghost of Tom 
Idle executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's ghost have 
made its appearance in 1847, and not in 1747, what 
changes would have been remarked by that aston- 
ished escaped criminal! Over that road which 

20 the hangman used to travel constantly, and the Ox- 
ford stage twice a week, go ten thousand carriages 
every day: over yonder road, by which Dick Tur- 
pin fled to Windsor, and Squire Western jour- 
neyed into town, when he came to take up his 

25 quarters at the " Hercules Pillars " on the outskirts 
of London, what a rush of civilisation and order 
flows now! What armies of gentlemen with um- 
brellas march to banks, and chambers, and count- 
ing-houses ! What regiments of nursery-maids and 

30 pretty infantry; what peaceful processions of po- 
licemen, what light broughams and what gay car- 
riages, what swarms of busy apprentices and arti- 



212 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

ficers, riding on omnibus-roofs, pass daily and 
hourly! Tom Idle's times are quite changed: many 
of the institutions gone into disuse which were ad- 
mired in his day. There's more pity and kindness 
and a better chance for poor Tom's successors now 5 
than at that simpler period when Fielding hanged 
him and Hogarth drew him. 

To the student of history, these admirable works 
must be invaluable, as they give us the most com- 
plete and truthful picture of the manners, and even lo 
the thoughts, of the past century. We look, and 
see pass before us the England of a hundred years 
ago — the peer in his drawing-room, the lady of 
fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surround- 
ing her, and the chamber filled with gewgaws in ^5 
the mode of that day; the church, with its quaint 
florid architecture and singing congregation; the 
parson with his great wig, and the beadle with his 
cane: all these are represented before us, and we 
are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how 20 
the Lord Mayor dines in state; how the prodigal 
drinks and sports at the bagnio; how the poor girl 
beats hemp in Bridewell; how the thief divides his 
booty and drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and 
how he finishes his career at the gibbet. We may 25 
depend upon the perfect accuracy of these strange 
and varied portraits of the bygone generation: we 
see one of Walpole's Members of Parliament 
chaired after his election, and the lieges celebrating 
the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender: 30 
we see the grenadiers and trainbands of the City 
marching out to meet the enemy; and have before 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 213 

US, with sword and firelock, and " White Hano- 
verian Horse " embroidered on the cap, the very 
figures of the men who ran away with Johnny Cope, 
and who conquered at Culloden. The Yorkshire 
5 waggon rolls into the inn yard; the country par- 
son, in his jack-boots, and his bands and short cas- 
sock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is 
Parson Adams, with his sermon in his pocket. The 
Salisbury fly sets forth from the old '' Angel " — 

JO you see the passengers entering the great heavy 
vehicle, up the wooden steps, their hats tied down 
with handkerchiefs over their faces, and under their 
arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle; the landlady — 
apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar — is tug- 

iSging at the bell; the hunchbacked postillion — he 
may have ridden the leaders to Humphrey Clinker 
— is begging a gratuity; the miser is grumbling at 
the bill; Jack of the " Centurion " lies on the top 
of the clumsy vehicle, with a soldier by his side * 

20 — it may be Smollett's Jack Hatchway — it has a 
likeness to Lismahago. You see the suburban 
fair and the strolling company of actors ; the pretty 
milkmaid singing under the windows of the en- 
raged French musician: it is such a girl as Steele 

25 charmingly described in the Guardian, a few years 
before this date,t singing, under Mr. Ironside's 
window in Shire Lane, her pleasant carol of a May 
morning. You see noblemen and blacklegs bawl- 
ing and betting in the Cockpit: you see Garrick 

30 as he was arrayed in " King Richard " ; Macheath 

* [The commentators say that the soldier is a Frenchman.] 
t [The Guardian ended in 1713. The " enraged musician " is 
dated 1741.] 



214 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

and Polly 'in the dresses which they wore when they 
charmed our ancestors, and when noblemen in blue 
ribands sat on the stage and listened to their de- 
lightful music. You see the ragged French sol- 
diery, in their white coats and cockades, at Calais 
Gate: they are of the regiment, very likely, which 
friend Roderick Random joined before he was res- 
cued by his preserver Monsieur de Strap, with | 
whom he fought on the famous day of Dettingen. 
You see the judges on the bench; the audience lo 
laughing in the pit; the student in the Oxford thea- 
tre; the citizen on his country walk; you see 
Broughton the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the mur- 
deress, Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the 
demagogue, leering at you with that squint which 15 
has become historical, and that face which, ugly as 
it was, he said he could make as captivating to 
woman as the countenance of the handsomest beau 
in town. All these sights and people are with you. ' 
After looking in the ''Rake's Progress" at Ho- 20 
garth's picture of Saint James's Palace Gate, you I 
may people the street, but little altered within these > 
hundred years, with the gilded carriages and 
thronging chairmen that bore the courtiers your 
ancestors to Queen Caroline's drawing-room more 25 
than a hundred years ago. 

What manner of man * was he who executed , 

* Hogarth (whose family name was Hogart) was the grandson of 
a Westmoreland yeoman. His father came to London, and was 
an author and schoolmaster. William was born loth November 1697, 3*-* 
in the parish of Saint Martin, Ludgate. He was early apprenticed [' 
to an engraver of arms on plate. The following touches arc from 
his Anecdotes of Himself (Edition of 1833):— 

" As I had naturally a good eye, and a fondness for drawing, 
shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant; and 35 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 21$ 

these portraits — so various, so faithful, and so ad- 
mirable? In the National Collection of Pictures 
most of us have seen the best and most carefully 

mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me. An early 
5 access to a neighbouring painter drew my attention from play; and 
I was, at every possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. 
I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learnt to 
draw the alphabet with great correctness. My exercises, when at 
school, were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them, 

XOthan for the exercise itself. In the former, I soon found that block- 
heads with better memories could much surpass me; but for the 
latter I was particularly distinguished. . . . 

" I thought it still more unlikely that by pursuing the common 
method, and copying old drawings, I could ever attain the power 

15 of making new designs, which was my first and greatest ambition. 
I therefore endeavoured to habituate myself to the exercise of a sort 
of technical memory; and by repeating in my own mind the parts 
of which objects were composed, I could by degrees combine and 
put them down with my pencil. Thus, with all the drawbacks which 
i 20 resulted from the circumstances I have mentioned, I had one 
material advantage over my competitors, viz., the early habit I thus 
acquired of retaining in my mind's eye, without coldly copying it on 
the spot, whatever I intended to imitate. 

" The instant I became master of my own time, I determined to 

25 qualify myself for engraving on copper. In this I readily got em- 
ployment; and frontispieces to books, such as prints to Hiidibras, 
in twelves, &c., soon brought me into the way. But the tribe of 
booksellers remained as my father had left them . . . which put me 
upon publishing on my own account. But here again I had to en- 

30 counter a monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive 
to the ingenious; for the first plate I published, called 'The Taste 
of the Town,' in which the reigning follies were lashed, had no 
sooner begun to take a run, than I found copies of it in the print- 
shops, vending at half-price, while the original prints were returned 

35 to me again, and I was thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever 

these pirates pleased to give me, as there was no place of sale but 

at their shops. Owing to this, and other circumstances, by engrav- 

1( ing, until I was near thirty, I could do little more than maintain 

myself; but even then I was a punctual paymaster. 

40 " I then married, and " 

[But William is going too fast here. He made a " stolen union," 
on March 23, 1729, with Jane, daughter- of Sir James Thornhill, 
serjeant-painter. For some time Sir James kept his heart and his 
purse-strings close, but " soon after became both reconciled and 

45 generous to the young couple."— Hogarth's Works, by Nichols and 
Steevens, vol. i. p. 44.] 
" — commenced painter of small Conversation Pieces, from twelve 



2l6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

finished series of his comic paintings, and the por- 
trait of his own honest face, of which the bright 
blue eyes shine out from the canvas and give you 

to fifteen inches high. This, being a novelty, succeeded for a few 
years." 

[About this time Hogarth had summer lodgings at South Lam- 
beth, and did all kinds of work, " embellishing " the " Spring 
Gardens " at " V^auxhall," and the like. In 1731 he published a 
satirical plate against Pope, founded on the well-known imputation 
against him of his having satirised the Duke of Chandos, under the jq 
name of Timon, in his poem on " Taste." The plate represented 
a view of Burlington House, with Pope whitewashing it, and be- 
spattering the Duke of Cliandos's coach. Pope made no retort, 
and has never mentioned Hogarth.] 

" Before I had done anytiiing of much consequence in this walk, I 15 
entertained some hopes of succeeding in what 'the puffers in books call 
The Great Style of History Painting; so that without having had a stroke 
of this grand business before, I quitted small portraits and familiar 
conversations, and with a smile at my own temerity, commenced 
history-painter, and on a great staircase at St. Bartholomew's 20 
Hospital, painted two Scripture stories, the * Pool of Bethesda ' and 
.the ' Good Samaritan,' with figures seven feet high. . . . But as 
religion, the great promoter of this style in other countries, re- 
jected it in England, I was unwilling to sink into a portrait manu- 
facturer; and, still ambitious of being singular, dropped all expec- 25 
tations of advantage from that source, and returned to the pursuit 
of my former dealings with the public at large. 

" As to portrait-painting, the chief branch of the art by which a 
painter can procure himself a tolerable livelihood, and the only one 
by which a lover of money can get a fortune, a man of very 30 
moderate talents may have great success in it, as the artifice and 
address of a mercer is infinitely more useful than the abilities of a 
painter. By the manner in which the present race of professors in 
England conduct it, that also becomes still life." 

" By this inundation of folly and puff " {he has been speaking of 35 
the success of VanJoo, who came over here in 1737), " I must confess 
I was much disgusted, and determined to try if by any means I 
could stem the torrent, and, by opposing, end it. I laughed at the 
pretensions of these quacks in colouring, ridiculed their productions 
as feeble and contemptible, and asserted that it required neither taste 40 
nor talents to excel their most popular performances. This interference 
excited much enmity, because, as my opponents told me, my studies 
were in another way. ' You talk,' added they, ' with ineffable con- 
tempt of portrait-painting; if it is so easy a task, why do not you 
convince the world by painting a portrait yourself ? ' Provoked 45 
at this language, I, one day at the Academy in St. Martin's Lane, 
put the following question : * Supposing any man, at this time, were 



i 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 21/ 

an idea of that keen and brave look with which 
WilHam Hogarth regarded the world. No man 
was ever less of a hero; you see him before you, 

to paint a portrait as well as Vandyke, would it be seen or acknowl- 
: 5 edged, and could the artist enjoy the benefit or acquire the reputation 
due to his performance ? ' 

"They asked me in reply, if I could paint one as well; and I 
frankly answered, I believed I could. . . . 

" Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait paint- 
" lO ing I had not the most exalted opinion." 

Let us now hear him on the question of the Academy:— 
" To pester the three great estates of the empire, about twenty 
or thirty students drawing after a man or a horse, appears, as must 
be acknowledged, foolish enough: but the real motive is, that a few 
C 15 bustling characters, who have access to people of rank, think they 
can thus get a superiority over their brethren, be appointed to places, 
and have salaries, as in France, for telling a lad when a leg or an 
arm is too long or too short. . . . 

" France, ever aping the magnificence of other nations, has in its 
20 turn assumed a foppish kind of splendour sufficient to dazzle the 
eyes of the neighbouring states, and draw vast sums of money from 
this country. . . . 

"To return to our Royal Academy: I am told that one of their 
leading objects will be, sending yovmg men abroad to study the 
25 antique statues, for such kind of studies may sometimes improve 
an exalted genius, but they will not create it; and whatever has been 
the cause, this same travelling to Italy has, in several instances 
that I have seen, seduced the student from nature and led him to 
paint marble figures, in which he has availed himself of the great 
1' 30 works of antiquity, as a coward does when he puts on the armour 
of an Alexander; for, with similar pretensions and similar vanity, 
the painter supposes he shall be adored as a second Raphael 
Urbino." 
We must now hear him on his " Sigismunda ": — 
35 "As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on * Sigismunda ' 
was from a set of miscreants, with whom I am proud of having been 
ever at war — I mean the expoimders of the mysteries of old pictures^I 
have been sometimes told they were beneath my notice. This is true 
of them individually; but as they have access to people of rank, 
40 who seem as happy in being cheated as these merchants are in cheat- 
ing them, they have a power of doing much mischief to a modern 
artist. However mean the vendor of poisons, the mineral is destruc- 
tive:— to me its operation was troublesome enough. Ill nature 
spreads so fast that now was the time for every little dog in the 
45 profession to bark ! " 

Next comes a characteristic account of his controversy with 
Wilkes and Churchill. 
" The stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some 



2l8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

and can fancy what he was — a jovial, honest Lon- 
don citizen, stout and sturdy; a hearty, plain- 
spoken man,* loving his laugh, his friend, his glass, 
his roast beef of Old England, and having a proper 

timed thing, to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income. 5 
This drew forth my print of ' The Times,' a subject which tended to 
the restoration of peace and unanimity, and put the opposers of 
these humane objects in a light which gave great offence to those 
who were trying to foment disaffection in the minds of the populace. 
One of the most notorious of them, till now my friend and flatterer, lO 
attacked me in the North Briton, in so infamous and malign a style, 
that he himself, when pushed even by his best friends, was driven 
to so poor an excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote it. . . . 

" This renowned patriot's portrait, drawn like as I could as to . 

features, and marked with some indications of his mind, fully an- ^5 j 
swered my purpose. The ridiculous was apparent to every eye ! 
A Brutus ! A saviour of his country with such an aspect — was so 
arrant a farce, that though it gave rise to much laughter in the 
lookers-on, galled both him and his adherents to the bone. ... 

" Churchill, Wilkes's toad-echo, put the North Briton attack into 20 
verse, in an Epistle to Hogarth; but as the abuse was precisely 
the same, except a little poetical heightening, which goes for nothing, 
it made no impression. . . , However, having an old plate by mc, 
with some parts ready, such as the background and a dog, I began 
to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some 25 
account, and so patched up a print of Master Churchill in the 
character of a Bear. The pleasure and pecuniary advantage which I 
derived from these two engravings, together with occasionally riding 
on horseback, restored me to as much health as can be expected at 
my time of life." 30 

* " It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a noble- 
man who was uncommonly ugly and deformed came to sit to him 
for his picture. It was executed with a skill that did honour to the 
artist's abilities; but the likeness was rigidly observed, without even 
the necessary attention to compliment or flattery. The peer, dis- 35 
gusted at this counterpart of himself, never once thought of paying 
for a reflection that would only disgust him with his deformities. 
Some time was suffered to elapse before the artist applied for his 
money; but afterwards many applications were made by him (who 
had then no need of a banker) for payment, without success. The 4° 
painter, however, at last hit upon an expedient. ... It was couched 
in the following card :^ 

" ' Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord . Finding that he 

does not mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, is 
informed again of Mr. Hogarth's necessity for the money. If, there- 45 
fore, his Lordship does not send for it, in three days it will be 
disposed of, with the addition of a tail, and some other little appen- 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 219 

bourgeois scorn for French frogs, for mounseers, 
and wooden shoes in general, for foreign fiddlers, 
foreign singers, and, above all, for foreign painters, 
whom he held in the most amusing contempt. 
5 It must have been great fun to hear him rage 
against Correggio and the Caracci; to watch him 
thump the table and snap his fingers, and say, 
"Historical painters be hanged! here's the man 
that will paint against any of them for a hundred 

10 pounds. Correggio's ' Sigismunda ' ! Look at 
Bill Hogarth's ' Sigismunda ' ; look at my altar- 
piece at Saint Mary Redclifife, Bristol; look at my 
* Paul before Felix,' and see whether Fm not as 
good as the best of them." * 

15 Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Ho- 
garth's opinion about his talents for the sublime. 

dages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man: Mr. Hogarth hav- 
ing given that gentleman a conditional promise of it, for an exhibi- 
tion-picture, on his Lordship's refusal.' 

20 " This intimation had the desired effect." — Works, by Nichols 
and Steevens, vol. i. p. 25. 

* " Garrick himself was not more ductile to flattery. A word in 
favour of ' Sigismunda ' might have commanded a proof-print or 
forced an original print out of our artist's hands. . . . 

25 " The following authenticated story of our artist (furnished by the 
late Mr. Belchier, F.R.S., a surgeon of eminence) will also serve 
to show how much more easy it is to detect ill-placed or hyperboli- 
cal adulation respecting others, than when applied to ourselves. 
Hogarth, being at dinner with the great Cheselden and some other 

accompany, was told that Mr. John Freke, surgeon of St. Bartholo- 
mew's Hospital, a few evenings before at Dick's Coffee-house, had 
asserted that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. 
' That fellow Freke,' replied Hogarth, ' is always shooting his bolt 
absurdly, one way or another. Handel is a giant in music; Greene 

35 only a light Florimel kind of a composer.' ' Ay,' says our artist's 
informant, ' but at the same time Mr. Freke declared you were as 
good a portrait-painter as Vandyke.' * There he was right,' adds 

Hogarth, ' and so, by G , I am, give me my time and let me 

choose my subject.' " — Works, by Nichols and Steevens, vol. i. 

40 pp. 2z6, 237. 



220 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Although Swift could not see the difference be- 
tween tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, posterity has 
not shared the Dean's contempt for Handel; the 
world has discovered a difference between tweedle- 
dee and tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause 5 
and admiration to Hogarth, too, but not exactly 
as a painter of scriptural subjects, or as a rival of 
Correggio. It does not take away from one's lik- 
ing for the man, or from the moral of his story, or 
the humour of it — from one's admiration for theio 
prodigious merit of his performances, to remember 
that he persisted to the last in believing that the 
world was in a conspiracy against him with respect 
to his talents as an historical painter, and that a set 
of miscreants, as he called them, were employed i5 
to run his genius down. They say it was Liston's 
firm belief, that he was a great and neglected tragic 
actor; they say that every one of us believes in his 
heart, or would like to have others believe, that he 
is something which he is not. One of the most 20 
notorious of the " miscreants," Hogarth says, was 
Wilkes, who assailed him in the North Briton; the 
other was Churchill, who put the North Briton 
attack into heroic verse, and published his '' Epistle 
to Hogarth." Hogarth replied by that caricature 25 
of Wilkes, in which the patriot still figures before 
us, with his Satanic grin and squint, and by a cari- 
cature of Churchill, in which he is represented as 
a bear with a staff, on which lie the first, lie the 
second — lie the tenth, are engraved in unmis- 30 
takable letters. There is very little mistake about 
honest Hogarth's satire: if he has to paifit a man 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 221 

With his throat cut, he draws him with his head 
almost off; and he tried to do the same for his 
enemies in this httle controversy. '' Having an old 
plate by me," says he, " with some parts ready, 
5 such as the background, and a dog, I began to con- 
sider how I could turn so much work laid aside 
to some account, and so patched up a print of Mas- 
ter Churchill, in the character of a bear; the pleas- 
ure and pecuniary advantage which I derived from 

lo these two engravings, together with occasionally 
riding on horseback, restored me to as much health 
as I can expect at my time of life." 

And so he concludes his queer little book of 
Anecdotes : " I have gone through the circum- 

15 stances of a life which till lately passed pretty much 
to my own satisfaction, and I hope in no respect in- 
jurious to any other man. This I may safely assert, 
that I have done my best to make those about me 
tolerably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot 

20 say I ever did an intentional injury. What may fol- 
low, God knows." * 

A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt 
taken by Hogarth and four friends of his, who set 
out like the redoubted Mr. Pickwick and his com- 

25 panions, but just a hundred years before those 
heroes; and made an excursion to Gravesend, 
Rochester, Sheerness, and adjacent places. f One 

* Of Hogarth's kindliness of disposition, the story of his rescue of 
the drummer-girl from the ruffian at Southwark Fair is an illustra- 
30tion; and in this case virtue was not its own reward, since her 
pretty face afterwards served him for a model in many a picture. 

t He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John 
Thornhill (son of Sir James), Scott the landscape-painter, Tothall, 
and Forrest. [The account was first published in 1782, and is in the 
35 third volume of the " Genuine Works," 1817.] 



222 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

of the gentlemen noted down the proceedings of the 
journey, for which Hogarth and a brother artist 
made drawings. The book is chiefly curious at 
this moment from showing the citizen hfe of those 
days, and the rough jolly style of merriment, not 5 
of the five companions merely, but of thousands 
of jolly fellows of their time. Hogarth and his 
friends, quitting the " Bedford Arms," Covent Gar- 
den, with a song, took water to Billingsgate, ex- 
changing compliments with the bargemen as they lo 
went down the river. At Billingsgate Hogarth 
made a " caracatura " of a facetious porter, called 
the Duke of Puddledock, who agreeably enter- 
tained the party with the humours of the place. 
Hence they took a Gravesend boat for themselves; 15 
had straw to lie upon, and a tilt over their heads, 
they say, and went down the river at night, sleep- 
ing and singing jolly choruses. 

They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they 
washed their faces and fiands, and had their wigs 20 
powdered. Then they sallied forth for Rochester 
on foot, and drank by the way three pots of ale. 
At one o'clock they went to dinner with excellent 
port, and a quantity more beer, and afterwards Ho- 
garth and Scott played at hopscotch in the town 25 
hall. It would appear that they slept most of them 
in one room, and the chronicler of the party de- 
scribes them all as waking at seven o'clock, and 
telling each other their dreams. You have rough 
sketches by Hogarth of the incidents of this holi-30 
day excursion. The sturdy little painter is seen 
sprawling over a plank to a boat at Gravesend; the 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 223 

whole company are represented in one design, in a 
fisherman's room, where they had all passed the 
night. One gentleman in a nightcap is shaving 
himself; another is being shaved by the fisherman; 
5 a third, with a handkerchief over his bald pate, is 
taking his breakfast; and Hogarth is sketching the 
whole scene. 

They describe at night how they returned to 
their quarters, drank to their friends as usual, 

10 emptied several cans of good flip, all singing mer- 
rily. 

It is a jolly party of tradesmen engaged at high 
jinks. These were the manners and pleasures of 
Hogarth, of his time very likely, of men not very 

15 refined, but honest and merry. It is a brave Lon- 
don citizen, with John Bull habits, prejudices, and 
pleasures.* 

* Doctor Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor 
Hogarth, which were equally true and pleasing; I know not why 
20Garrick's were preferred to them: — 

" ' The hand of him here torpid lies. 

That drew th' essential forms of grace; 
Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, 
That saw the manners in the face.' " 

25 [Johnson's lines were only a suggested emendation upon the first 
form of the verses, submitted to him by Garrick for criticism. — • 
lioswELL's Johnson (Birkbeck Hill), i. 187.] 

" Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me 
when I was too young to have a proper sense of them, was used 

30 to be very earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and if 
possible the friendship, of Doctor Johnson; whose conversation 
was, to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting coffFpared to 
Hudson's, he said: ' but don't you tell people now that I say so,' 
continued he, ' for the connoisseurs and I are at war, you know; 

35 and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian — and let them ! ' 
... Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he were talking about 
him one day, * That man,' says Hogarth, ' is not contented with 
believing the Bible; but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe 



224 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Of Smollett's associates and manner of life the 
author of the admirable '' Humphrey Clinker " has 
given us an interesting account in that most amus- 
ing of novels.* 

nothing hni the Bible. Johnson,' added he, ' though so wise a fellow, 5 
is more like King David than King Solomon, for he says in his 
haste, AU men are liars' " — Mrs. Piozzi. 

Hogarth died on the 26th of October 1764. The day before his 
death, he was removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, 
" in a very weak condition, yet remarkably cheerful." He had just lO 
received an agreeable letter from Franklin. He lies buried at 
Chiswick. 

* To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart., of Jesus College, Oxon. 

" Dear Phillips, — In my last, I mentioned my having spent an 
evening with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and 15 
afraid of one another. My uncle was not at all surprised to hear me 
say I was disappointed in their conversation. * A man may be very 
entertaining and instructive upon paper,' said he, ' and exceedingly 
dull in common discourse. I have observed, that those who shine 
most in private company are but secondary stars in the constella- 20 
tion of genius. A small stock of ideas is more easily managed, and 
sooner displayed, than a great quantity crowded together. There 
is very seldom anything extraordinary in the appearance and address 
of a good writer; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes him- 
self by some oddity or extravagance. For this reason I fancy that ^5 
an. assembly of grubs must be very diverting.' 

" My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend 
Dick Ivy, who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was 

Sunday last. He carried me to dine with S , whom you and I 

have long known by his writings. He lives in the skirts of the 3^ 
town; and every Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate 
brothers of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and po- 
tatoes, port, punch, and Calvert's entire butt beer. He has fixed 
upon the first day of the week for the exercise of his hospitality, 
because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any other, for 35 
reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received in a plain, 
yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into a very pleasant 
garden, kept in excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the out- 
ward signs of authorship either in the house or the landlord, who is 
one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own foun- 40 
dation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was 
nothing characteristic in the entertainer, the company made ample 
amends for his want of singularity. 

" At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates 
seated at table; and I question if the whole kingdom could produce 45 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 225 

I have no doubt that this picture by Smollett is 
as faithful a one as any from the pencil of his kin- 
dred humourist, Hogarth. 

We have before us, and painted by his own hand, 

e such another assemblage of originals. Among their peculiarities, 
I do not mention those of dress, which may b2 purely accidetitaL 
What struck me were oddities originally produced by affectation, 
and afterwards confirmed by habit. One of them wore spectacles 
at dinner, and another his hat flapped; though (as Ivy told me) 

lO the first was noted for having a seaman's eye when a bailiff was in 
the wind; and the other was never known to labour under any 
weakness or defect of vision, except about five years ago, when he 
was complimented with a couple of black eyes by a player, with 
whom he had quarrelled in his drink. A third wore a laced stock- 

15 ing, and made use of crutches, because, once in his life, he had been 
laid up with a broken leg, though no man could leap over a stick 
with more agility. A fourth had contracted such an antipathy to the 
country, that he insisted upon sitting with his back towards the 
window that looked into the garden; and when a dish of cauli- 

20 flower was set upon the table, he snuffed up volatile salts to keep 
him from fainting; yet this delicate person was the son of a cotta- 
ger, born under a hedge, and had many years run wild among asses 
on a common. A fifth affected distraction: when spoke to, he al- 
ways answered from the purpose. Sometimes he suddenly started 

25 up, and rapped out a dreadful oath; sometimes he burst out a 
laughing; then he folded his arms, and sighed; and then he hissed 
like fifty serpents. 

"At first, I really thought he was mad; and, as he sat near me, 
began to be under some apprehensions for my own safety; when 

30 our landlord, perceiving me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had 
nothing to fear. ' The gentleman,' said he, ' is trying to act a part 
for which he is by no means qualified; if he had all the inclination 
in the world, it is not in his power to be mad; his spirits are too flat 
to be kindled into phrenzy.' ' 'Tis no bad p-p-puff, how-owever,' 

35 observed a person in a tarnished laced coat: ' aff-ifect^d m-madness 
w-ill p-pass for w-wit w-with nine-nineteen out of t-twenty.' ' And 
affected stuttering for humour,' replied our landlord; ' though, 
God knows ! there is no affinity between them.' It seems this wag, 
after having made some abortive attempts in plain speaking, had 

40 recourse to this defect, by means of which he frequently extorted 
the laugh of the company, without the least expense of genius; and 
that imperfection, which he had at first counterfeited, was now be- 
come so habitual, that he could not lay it aside. 

" A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, 

45 had, on his first introduction, taken such offence at S , because 

he looked and talked, and ate and drank, like any other man, that 

': he spoke contemptuously of his understanding ever after, and never 



226 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

Tobias Smollett, the manly, kindly, honest, and 
irascible; worn and battered, but still brave and 
full of heart, after a long struggle against a hard 

would repeat his visit, until he had exhibited the following proof 
of his caprice. Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some unsuccess- 
ful advances towards an intimacy with S , at last gave him to 

understand, by a third person, that he had written a poem in his 
praise, and a satire against his person: that if he would admit him 
to his house, the first should be immediately sent to press; but 
that if he persisted in declining his friendship, he would publish lo 

the satire without delay. S replied, that he looked upon Wyvil's 

panegyric as, in effect, a species of infamy, and would resent it 
accordingly with a good cudgel; but if he published the satire, he 
might deserve his compassion, and had nothing to fear from his 
revenge. Wyvil having considered the alternative, resolved to 15 

mortify S by printing the panegyric, for which he received a 

sound drubbing. Then he swore the peace against the aggressor, who, 
in order to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good ] 
graces. It was the singularity in S— ^'s conduct on this occasion, 
that reconciled him to the yellow-gloved philosopher, who owned 20 
he had some genius; and from that period cultivated his ac- 
quaintance. 

" Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my 
fellow-guests were employed, I applied to my communicative friend 
Dick Ivy, who gave me to understand that most of them were, or 25 j 
had been, understrappers, or journeymen, to more creditable l 
authors, for whom they translated, collated, and compiled, in the ' 
business of bookmak'ing; and that all of them had, at different I 
times, laboured in the service of our landlord, though they had now j 
set up for themselves in various departments of literature. Not 30 
only their talents, but also their nations and dialects, were so vari- ' 
ous, that our conversation resembled the confusion of tongues at 
Babel. We had the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and foreign 
idiom, twanged off by the most discordant vociferation; for as they 
all spoke together, no man had any chance to be heard, unless he 35 
could bawl Ipuder than his fellows. It must be owned, however, 
there was nothing pedantic in their discourse; they carefully avoided 
all learned disquisitions, and endeavoured to be facetious: nor did 
their endeavours always miscarry; some droll repartee passed, and 
much laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his temper 40 
so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually 
checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal 
authority over this irritable tribe. 

" The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had 
been expelled the university for atheism, has made great progress 45 
in a refutation of Lord Bolingbroke's metaphysical works, which is 
said to be equally ingenious and orthodox; but, in the meantime, 
he has been presented to the grand jury as a public nuisance for 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FLELDING 22/ 

fortune. His brain had been busied with a hun- 
dred different schemes; he had been reviewer and 
historian, critic, medical writer, poet, pamphleteer. 

, having blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's day. The Scotch- 
■ e man gives lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, 
which he is now publishing by subscription. 

" The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of My 
Lord Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a Minister, 
hoping his zeal would be rewarded with some place or pension; 
lO but finding himself neglected in that quarter, he whispered about 
I that the pamphlet was written by the Minister himself, and he pub- 
' lished an answer to his own production. In this he addressed the 
author under the title of ' your Lordship,' with such solemnity, 
that the public swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole im- 
15 pression. The wise politicians of the metropolis declared they were 
both masterly performances, and chuckled over the fiimsy reveries 
of an ignorant garreteer, as the profound speculations of a veteran 
statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet. The im- 
posture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer 
20 retains no part of his assumed importance but the bare title of ' my 
Lord,' and the uppefr part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in 
Shoe Lane. 

" Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public 
with a humorous satire, entitled The Balance of the English Poets; 
' 25 a performance which evinced the great modesty and taste of the 
author, and, in particular, his intimacy with the elegancies of the 
English language. The sage, who laboured under the aypo^o^ia, 
or ' horror of green fields,' had just finished a treatise on practical 
agriculture, though, in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his 
30 life, and was so ignorant of grain, that our entertainer, in the face 
of the whole company, made him own that a plate of hominy was 
the best rice-pudding he had ever eat. 

" The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe 

and part of Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of the 

35 King's Bench, except in term-time with a tipstaff for his companion; 

and as for little Tim Cropdale, the most facetious member of the 

whole society, he had happily wound up the catastrophe of a virgin 

tragedy, from the exhibition of which he promised himself a large 

fund of profit and reputation. Tim had made shift to live many 

40 J'ears by writing novels, at the rate of five pounds a volume; but 

that branch of business is now engrossed by female authors, who 

publish merely for the propagation of virtue, with so much ease, 

and spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the human heart, and 

all in the serene tranquillity of high life, that the reader is not only 

45 enchanted by their genius, but reformed by their morality. 

" After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where I observed 
-Mr. S give a short separate audience to every individual in a 



228 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

He had fought endless hterary battles; and braved 
and wielded for years the cudgels of controversy. 
It was a hard and savage fight in those days, and a 
niggard pay. He was oppressed by illness, age, 
narrow fortune; but his spirit was still resolute, and 5 
his courage steady; the battle over, he could do 
justice to the enemy with whom he had been so 
fiercely engaged, and give a not unfriendly grasp 
to the hand that had mauled him. He is like one 
of those Scotch cadets, of whom history gives usio 
so many examples, and whom, with a national 
fidelity, the great Scotch novelist has painted so 
charmingly. Of gentle birth * and narrow means, 

small remote filbert-walk, from whence most of them dropped off 
one after another, without further ceremony." 1 5 

Smollett's house was in Lawrence Lane, Chelsea, and is now 
destroyed. — See Handbook of London, p. 115. 

The person of Smollett was eminently handsome, his features pre- 
possessing, and, by the joint testimony of all his surviving friends, his 
conversation, in the highest degree, instructive and amusing. Of his 20 
disposition, those who have read his works (and who has not') may 
form a very accurate estimate; for in each of them he has presented, 
and sometimes under various points of view, the leading features of 
his own character without disguising the most unfavourable of 
them. . . . When unseduced by his satirical propensities, he was 25 
kind, generous, and humane to others; bold, upright, and inde- 
pendent in his own character; stooped to no patron, sued for no 
favour, but honestly, and honourably maintained himself on his 
literary labours. . . . He was a doting father and an affectionate 
husband; and the warm zeal with which his memory was cherished 3^ 
by his surviving friends showed clearly the reliance which they 
placed upon his regard." — Sir Walter Scoff. 

* Smollett of Bbnhill, in Dumbartonshire. Arms, azure, a bend, or, 
between a lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, argent, 
and a bugle-horn, also ppr. Crest, an oak-tree, ppr. Motto, Vircsco. 35 

Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James 
Smollett of Bonhill, a Scotch Judge and Member of Parliament, 
and one of the commissioners for framing the Union with England. 
Archibald married, without the old gentleman's consent, and died 
early, leaving his children dependent on their grandfather. Tobias, 40 
the second son, was born in 1721, in the old house of Dalquharn in 
the valley of Leven; and all his life loved and admired that valley 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 229 

going out from his northern home to win his for- 
tune in the world, and to fight his way, armed with 
courage, hunger, and keen wits. His crest is a 
shattered oak-tree, with green leaves yet spring- 
5 ing from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms there is 
a lion and a horn; this shield of his was battered 
and dinted in a hundred fights and brawls,* 
through which the stout Scotchman bore it cour- 



, and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys and lakes in Europe. He 

10 learned the " rudiments " at Dumbarton Grammar School, and 
studied at Glasgow. 

But when he was only ten, his grandfather died, and left him 
without provision (figuring as the old judge in Roderick Random in 
consequence, according to Sir Walter). Tobias, armed with the 

15 Regicide, a Tragedy — a provision precisely similar to that with which 
Doctor Johnson had started, just before— came up to London. The 
Regicide came to no good, though at first patronised by Lord 
Lyttelton (" one of those little fellows who are sometimes called 
great men," Smollett says); and Smollett embarked as "surgeon's 

2oniate" on board a line-of-battle ship, and served in the Carthagena 
expedition, in 1741. He left the service in the West Indies, and, 
after residing some time in Jamaica, returned to England in 1746. 

He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with; pub- 
lished the satires, Advice and Reproof, without any luck; and 

25 (1747) married the " beautiful and accomplished Miss Lascelles." 
In 1748 he brought out his Roderick Random, which at once made a 
" hit." The subsequent events of his life may be presented, chrono- 
logically, in a bird's-eye view: 



1750. 



Made a tour to Paris, where he chieny wrote Peregrine Pickle. 
30 1751- Published Peregrine Pickle. 

753. Published Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. 

755. Published version of Don Quixote. 

756. Began the Critical Review. 
758. Published his History of England. 

|J5 1763-1766. Travelling in France and Italy; published his Travels. 

1769. Published Adventures of an Atom. 

1770. Set out for Italy; died at Leghorn, 21st of October 1771, 
in the fifty-first year of his age. 

* A good specimen of the old " slashing " style of writing is 

\0 presented by the paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected 

Smollett to prosecution and imprisonment. The admiral's defence 

on the occasion of the failure of the Rochefort expedition came to 

be examined before the tribunal of the Critical Review. 

i " He is," said our author, " an admiral without conduct, an en- 



230 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

ageously. You see somehow that he is a gentle- 
man, through all his battling and struggling, his 
poverty, his hard-fought successes, and his defeats. 
His novels are recollections of his own adventures; 
his characters drawn, as I should think, from per- 
sonages with whom he became acquainted in his 
own career of life. Strange companions he must 

gineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man 
without veracity ! " 

Three months' imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this jo j 
stinging paragraph. | 

But the Critical was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of " hot 
water." Among less important controversies may be mentioned that 
with Grainger, the translator of Tibullus. Grainger replied in a 
pamphlet; and in the next number of the Review we find him Ig 
threatened with " castigation," as an " owl that has broken from his 
mew ! " 

In Doctor Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After 
publishing the Don Quixote, he returned to Scotland to pay a visit 
to his mother:— 20 

" On Smollett's arrival, he was introduced to his mother with the 
connivance of Mrs. Telfer (her daughter), as a gentleman from the 
West Indies, who was intimately acquainted with her son. The 
better to support his assumed character, he endeavoured to preserve 
a serious countenance, approaching to a frown; but while his 25 
mother's eyes were riveted on his countenance, he could not refrain 
from smiling: she immediately sprung from her chair, and throw- 
ing her arms round his neck, exclaimed, ' Ah, my son ! my son ! 
I have found you at last ! ' 

" She afterwards told iiim, that if he had kept his austere looks 30 | 
and continued to gloom, he might have escaped detection some time 
longer, but ' your old roguish smile,' added she, ' betrayed you at 
once.' " 

" Shortly after the publication of The Adventures of an Atom, 
disease again attacked Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts 35 
being vainly made to obtain for him the office of Consul in some 
part of the Mediterranean, he was compelled to seek a warmer 
climate, without better means of provision than his own precarious 
finances could afford. The kindness of his distinguis'hed friend and 
countryman, Dr. Armstrong (then abroad), procured for Dr. and 40 
Mrs. Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a village situated on the 
side of a mountain overlooking the sea, in the neighbourhood of 
Leghorn, a romantic and salutary abode, where he prepared for the 
press the last, and, like music ' sweetest in the close,' the most 
pleasing of his compositions. The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker. 46 
This delightful work was published in 1771." — Sir Walter Scott. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 23 1 

have had; queer acquaintances He made in the Glas- 
gow College — in the country apothecary's shop; in 
the gun-room of the man-of-war where he served 
as surgeon; and in the hard life on shore, where 
5 the sturdy adventurer struggled for fortune. He 
did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the keenest 
perceptive faculty, and described what he saw with 
wonderful relish and delightful broad humour. I 
think Uncle Bowling, in " Roderick Random," is 

10 as good a character as Squire Western himself; and 
Mr. Morgan, the Welsh apothecary, is as pleasant 
as Doctor Caius. What man who has made his 
inestimable acquaintance — what novel-reader who 
loves Don Quixote and Major Dalgetty — will re- 

15 fuse his most cordial acknowledgments to the ad- 
mirable Lieutenant Lismahago? The novel of 
'' Humphrey Clinker " is, I do think, the most 
laughable story that has ever been written since the 
goodly art of novel-writing began. Winifred Jenk- 

20 ins and Tabitha Bramble must keep Englishmen 
on the grin for ages yet to come; and in their letters 
and the story of their loves there is a perpetual 
fount of sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as 
Bladud's well. 

25 Fielding, too, has described, though with a 
greater hand, the characters and scenes which he 
knew and saw. He had more than ordinary op- 
portunities for becoming acquainted with life. His 
family and education, first — his fortunes and mis- 

30 fortunes afterwards, brought him into the society of 
every rank and condition of man. He is himself 



232 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

the hero of his books : he is wild Tom Jones, he is ' 
wild Captain Booth; less wild, I am glad to think, 
than his predecessor: at least heartily conscious : 
of demerit, and anxious to amend. \ 

When Fielding first came upon the town in 1727, 5 
the recollection of the great wits w^as still fresh in 
the coffee-houses and assemblies, and the judges 
there declared that young Harry Fielding had 
more spirits and wit than Congreve or any of his 
brilliant successors. His figure was tall and stal- 10 
wart; his face handsome, manly, and noble-look- 
ing; to the very last days of his life he retained a 
grandeur of air, and although worn down by dis- 
ease, his aspect and presence imposed respect upon 
the people round about him. 15 

A dispute took place between Mr. Fielding and 
the captain * of the ship in which he was making 
his last voyage, and Fielding relates how the man 
finally went down on his knees, and begged his 
passenger's pardon. He was living up to the last 20; 
days of his life, and his spirit never gave in. His 
vital power must have been immensely strong. 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu f prettily charac- 
terises Fielding and this capacity for happiness 

* The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that func- 25 
tionary to intrude on his right to his cabin, for which he had paid 
thirty pounds. After recounting the circumstances of the apology, 
he characteristically adds: — 

" And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my 
own praises, I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. 30 
Neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my 
Christianity exact this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him 
from a motive which would make men much more forgiving, if they 
were much wiser than they are: because it was convenient for me 
so to do." 35 

t Lady Mary was his second cousin — their respective grandfathers 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 233 

which he possessed, in a little notice of his death 
when she compares him to Steele, who was as im- 
provident and as happy as he was, and says that 
both should have gone on living for ever. One 

5 can fancy the eagerness and gusto with which a 
man of Fielding's frame, with his vast health and 
robust appetite, his ardent spirits, his joyful hu- 
mour, and his keen and healthy relish for life, must 
have seized and drunk that cup of pleasure which 

[o the town offered to him. Can any of my hearers 
remember the youthful feats of a college breakfast 
— the meats devoured and the cups quafifed in that 
Homeric feast? I can call to mind some of the 
heroes of those youthful banquets, and fancy young 

5 Fielding from Leyden rushing upon the feast, with 
his great laugh, and immense healthy young appe- 
tite, eager and vigorous to enjoy. The young 

being sons of George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, son of William, 
Earl of Denbigh. 

;0 In a letter dated just a week before his death, she says: — 

" H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first 
wife in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to 
his own figure excepted; and I am persuaded, several of the in- 
cidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does not 

5 perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels. . . . Fielding 
has really a fund of true humour, and was to be pitied at his first 
entrance into the world, having no choice, as he said himself, but 

. to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. His genius deserved 
a better fate; but I cannot help blaming that continued indiscretion, 

O to give it the softest name, that has run through his life, and I am 
afraid still remains. . .'. Since I was born no original has appeared 
excepting Congreve, and Fielding, who would, I believe, have ap- 
proached nearer to his excellences, if not forced by his necessities 
to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the 

5 world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been 
got without money, or money without scribbling. ... I am sorry 
not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances; I wish you 

• would tell me his nzme."— Letters and Works (Lord Wharncliffe's 
ed.), vol. iii. pp. 93, 94. 



234 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

man's wit and manners made him friends every- 
where: he Hved with the grand Man's society of 
those days; he was courted by peers and men of 
weaUh and fashion. As he had a paternal allow- 
ance from his father, General Fielding, which, to 5 
use Henry's own phrase, any man might pay who 
would; as he liked good wine, good clothes, and 
good company, which are all expensive articles to 
purchase, Harry Fielding began to run into debt, 
and borrow money in that easy manner in which lo; 
Captain Booth borrows money in the novel: was 
in nowise particular in accepting a few pieces from 
the purses of his rich friends, and bore down upon 
more than one of them, as Walpole tells us only 
too truly, for a dinner or a guinea. To supply him- \i\ 
self with the latter, he began to write theatrical 
pieces, having already, no doubt, a considerable 
acquaintance amongst the Oldfields and Brace- 
girdles behind the scenes. He laughed at these 
pieces and scorned them. When the audience upon 
one occasion began to hiss a scene which he was 
too lazy to correct, and regarding which, when 
Garrick remonstrated with him, he said that the 
public was too stupid to find out the badness of his 
work: when the audience began to hiss, Fielding 25 
said with characteristic coolness — '' They have 
found it out, have they?" He did not prepare his 
novels in this way, and with a very different care 
and interest laid the foundations and built up the 
edifices of his future fame. 

Time and shower have very little damaged those. 
The fashion and ornaments are, perhaps, of the 



20 



30 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FLELDLNG 2^$ 

architecture of that age, but the buildings remain 
strong and lofty, and of admirable proportions — 
masterpieces of genius and monuments of work- 
manlike skill. 

■ 5 I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry 
Fielding. Why hide his faults? Why conceal his 
weaknesses in a cloud of periphrases? Why not 
show him, like him as he is, not robed in a marble 
toga, and draped and polished in an heroic atti- 

pio tude, but with inked rufifles, and claret stains on his 
tarnished laced coat, and on his manly face the 

, marks of good fellowship, of illness, of kindness, 

I of care and wine? Stained as you see him, and 
worn by care and dissipation, that man retains some 

15 of the most precious and splendid human qualities 
and endowments. He has an admirable natural love 
of truth, the keenest instinctive antipathy to hypo- 
crisy, the happiest satirical gift of laughing it 
to scorn. His wit is wonderfully wise and de- 

,2otective; it flashes upon a rogue and lightens up a 
rascal like a policeman's lantern. He is one of the 
manliest and kindliest of human beings: in the 
midst of all his imperfections, he respects female 
innocence and infantine tenderness as you would 

J25 suppose such a great-hearted, courageous soul 
would respect and care for them. He could not be 
so brave, generous, truth-telling as he is, were he 
not infinitely merciful, pitiful, and tender. He will 
give any man his purse — he can't help kindness and 
30 profusion. He may have low tastes, but not a 
mean mind; he admires with all his heart good and 
virtuous men, stoops to no flattery, bears no ran- 



236 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

cour, disdains all disloyal arts, does his public duty 
uprightly, is fondly loved by his family, and dies at 
his work.* 

If that theory be — and I have no doubt it is — 
the right and safe one, that human nature is always 5 
pleased with the spectacle of innocence rescued by 
fidelity, purity, and courage, I suppose that of the 
heroes of Fielding's three novels, we should like 
honest Joseph Andrews the best, and Captain 
Booth the second, and Tom Jones the third. f ^^ 

Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's 
cast-ofif livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as 
Tom Jones in his fustian suit, or Captain Booth 
in regimentals. He has, like those heroes, large 
calves, broad shoulders, a high courage, and a '5 
handsome face. The accounts of Joseph's bravery 
and good qualities; his voice, too musical to halloo 
to the dogs; his bravery in riding races for the 
gentlemen of the county, and his constancy in re- 
fusing bribes and temptation, have something af- 20 
fecting in their ndivcic and freshness, and pre- 
possess one in favour of that handsome young hero. 
The rustic bloom of Fanny, and the delightful sim- 
plicity of Parson Adams, are described with a 

* He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, 25 
June 30th, 1754; and began The Journal of a Voyage during the 
passage. He died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October of the 
same year. He lies buried there, in the English Protestant church- 
yard, near the Estrella Church, with this inscription over him: — 

" HENRICUS FIELDING 30 

LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NGN DARI 
FOVERE NATUM." 

t Fielding himself is said by Doctor Warton to have preferred 
Joseph Andrews to his other writings. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FLELDLNG 237 

friendliness which wins the reader of their story; 
we part from them with more regret than from 
Booth and Jones. 

Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in 

i 5 ridicule of " Pamela," for which work one can un- 
'derstand the hearty contempt and antipathy which 
such an athletic and boisterous genius as Field- 
ing's must have entertained. He couldn't do other- 
wise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, 

,10 pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twad- 
dle, and hold him up to scorn as a mollcoddle and 
a milksop. His genius had been nursed on sack 
posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had sung 
the loudest in tavern choruses, had seen the day- 

.15 light streaming in over thousands of emptied bowls, 
and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of 
the watchman. Richardson's goddess was attended 
by old maids and dowagers, and fed on muffins and 
bohea. "Milksop!" roars Harry Fielding, clat- 

2otering at the timid shop-shutters. " Wretch! Mon- 
ster! Mohock!" shrieks the sentimental author of 
" Pamela " ; * and all the ladies of his court cackle 
out an affrighted chorus. Fielding proposes to 
write a book in ridicule of the author, whom he 

25 disliked and utterly scorned and laughed at; but 

* " Richardson," says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of 
him, prefixed to his Correspondence, " was exceedingly hurt at this 
(Joseph Andrexvs), the more so as they had been on good terms, 
and he was very intimate with Fielding's two sisters. He never appears 
.30 cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in human nature he 
should), and he always speaks in his letters with a great deal of 
asperity of Tom Jones, more indeed than was quite graceful in a 
rival author. No doubt he himself thought his indignation was 
solely excited by the loose morality of the work and of its author, 
J5 but he could tolerate Gibber." 



238 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

he is himself of so generous, jovial, and kindly a 
turn that he begins to like the characters which he 
invents, can't help making them manly and pleasant 
as well as ridiculous, and before he has done with 
them all, loves them heartily every one. 5 

Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry 
Fielding is quite as natural as the other's laughter 
and contempt at the sentimentalist. I have not 
learned that these likings and dislikings have 
ceased in the present day : and every author must 10 
lay his account not only to misrepresentation, but 
to honest enmity among critics, and to being 
hated and abused for good as well as for bad rea- 
sons. Richardson disliked Fielding's works quite 
honestly: Walpole quite honestly spoke of them as i") 
vulgar and stupid. Their squeamish stomachs 
sickened at the rough fare and the rough guests 
assembled at Fielding's jolly revel. Indeed the 
cloth might have been cleaner: and the dinner and 
the company were scarce such as suited a dandy. 20 
The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down 
with him.* But a greater scholar than Johnson 
could afiford to admire that astonishing genius of 
Harry Fielding; and we all know the lofty 
panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, and which 25 
remains a towering monument to the great nov- 
elist's memory. *' Our immortal Fielding," Gib- 
bon writes, " was of the younger branch of the 

* It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor 
couldn't be expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say nothing of 3^ 
the fact that they were of opposite sides in politics), Richardson 
was one of his earliest and kindest friends. Yet Johnson too (as 
Boswell tells us) read Amelia through without stopping. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 239 

Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the 
Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of Charles 
V. may disdain their brethren of England, but the 
romance of ' Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of 

' 5 humour and manners, will outlive the palace of the 
Escurial and the Imperial Eagle of Austria." 

There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this 
great judge. To have your name mentioned by 
Gibbon, is like having it written on the dome of 

'10 St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire 
and behold it. 

As a picture of manners, the novel of " Tom 
Jones " is indeed exquisite : as a work of construc- 
tion, quite a wonder: the by-play of wisdom; the 

15 power of observation; the multiplied felicitous 
turns and thoughts; the varied character of the 
great Comic Epic: keep the reader in a perpetual 
admiration and curiosity.* But against Mr. 
Thomas Jones himself we have a right to put in a 

20 protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author 

* " Manners change from generation to generation, and with man- 
ners morals appear to change — actually change with some, but appear 
to change with all but the abandoned. A young man of the present 
day who should act as Tom Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with 

25 Lady Bellaston, &c., would not be a Tom Jones; and a Tom Jones 
of the present day, without perhaps being in the ground a better 
man, would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harri- 
dan of fortune. Therefore, this novel is, and indeed pretends to be, 
no example of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe 

30 the cant which can recommend Pamela and Clarissa Harlozve as 
strictly moral, although they poison the imagination of the young 
with continued doses of tinct. lyttw, while Tom Jones is prohibited as 
loose. I do not speak of young women; but a young man whose 
heart or feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited by this 

35 novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, 
breezy spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with the 
close, hot, day-dreamy continuity of Richardson." — Coleridge. 
Literary Remains, vol. ii. p. 374. 



240 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

evidently has for that character. Charles Lamb 
says finely of Jones, that a single hearty laugh from 
him " clears the air " — but then it is in a certain 
state of the atmosphere. It might clear the air 
when such personages as Blifil or Lady Behaston 5 
poison it. But I fear very much that (except until 
the very last scene of the story), when Mr. Jones 
enters Sophia's drawing-room, the pure air there 
is rather tainted with the young gentleman's to- 
bacco-pipe and punch. I can't say that I think lo 
Mr. Jones a virtuous character; I can't say but 
that I think P^ielding's evident liking and admira- 
tion for Mr. Jones shows that the great humourist's 
moral sense was blunted by his life, and that here, 
in Art and Ethics, there is a great error. If it is 15 
right to have a hero whom we may admire, let us 
at least take care that he is admirable: if, as is the 
plan of some authors (a plan decidedly against their 
interests, be it said), it is propounded that there 
exists in life no such being, and therefore that in 20 
novels, the picture of life, there should appear no 
such character; then Mr. Thomas Jones becomes 
an admissible person, and we examine his defects 
and good qualities, as we do those of Parson 
Thwackum, or Miss Seagrim. But a hero with a 25 
flawed reputation; a hero spunging for a guinea; 
a hero who can't pay his landlady, and is obliged 
to let his honour out to hire, is absurd, and his 
claim to heroic rank untenable. I protest against 
Mr. Thomas Jones holding such rank at all. I pro- 30 
test even against his being considered a more than 
ordinary young fellow, ruddy-cheeked, broad- 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 24 1 

shouldered, and fond of wine and pleasure. He 
would not rob a church, but that is all; and a 
pretty long argument may be debated, as to which 
of these old types — the spendthrift, the hypocrite, 
5 Jones and Blifil, Charles and Joseph Surface — is 
the worst member of society and the most deserv- 
ing of censure. The prodigal Captain Booth is a 
better man than his predecessor Mr. Jones, in so 
far as he thinks much more humbly of himself than 

10 Jones did: goes down on his knees, and owns his 
weaknesses, and cries out, " Not for my sake, but 
for the sake of my pure and sweet and beautiful 
wife Amelia, I pray you, O critical reader, to for- 
give me." That stern moralist regards him from 

15 the bench (the judge's practice out of court is not 
here the question), and says, " Captain Booth, it 
is perfectly true that your life has been dis- 
reputable, and that on many occasions you have 
shown yourself to be no better than a scamp — you 

20 have been tippling at the tavern, when the kindest 
and sweetest lady in the world has cooked your 
little supper of boiled mutton and awaited you all 
the night; you have spoilt the little dish of boiled 
mutton thereby, and caused pangs and pains to 

25 Amelia's tender heart.* You have got into debt 

* '* Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that 
beloved first wife, whose picture he drew i his ' Amelia,' when, as 
she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did 
not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, 

30 or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident 
related in the novel— a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle 
of her nose. He loved her passionately, and she returned his affec- 
tion. . . . 
# " His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that, after 

35 the death of this charming woman, he married her maid. And yet 



242 ENGLISH [HUMOURISTS 

without the means of paying it. You have gambled 
the money with which you ought to have paid your 
rent. You have spent in drink or in worse amuse- 
ments the sums which your poor wife has raised 
upon her httle home treasures, her own ornaments, 5 
and the toys of her children. But, you rascal ! you 
own humbly that you are no better than you should 
be ; you never for one moment pretend that you are 
anything but a miserable weak-minded rogue. You 
do in your heart adore that angelic woman yourio 
wife, and for her sake, sirrah, you shall have your 
discharge. Lucky for you, and for others like you, 
that in spite of your failings and imperfections, pure 
hearts pity and love you. For your wife's sake you 
are permitted to go hence without a remand; and 15 
I beg you, by the way, to carry to that angelical 
lady the expression of the cordial respect and ad- 

the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. 
The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, 
devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her 20 
loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to 
frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor 
solace when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they 
mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential asso- 
ciate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give 25 
his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful 
housekeeper and nurse. At least, this was what he told his friends; 
and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully 
justified his good opinion." — Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu. Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. Introductory Anecdotes, vol. i. 3^ 
pp. 80, 8r. 

Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salis- 
bury, with a fortune of ;£i5oo, whom he married in 1736. About the 
same time he succeeded, himself, to an estate of £200 per annum, 
and on the joint amount he lived for some time as a splendid coun- 35 
try gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years brought him to the end 
of his fortune; when he returned to London, and became a theatri- 
cal manager. [Recent researches have not confirmed the report as 
to the " estate of £200 a year "; nor can he have spent three years* 
in the country.] 4^ 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 243 

miration of this court." Amelia pleads for her hus- 
band, Will Booth: Amelia pleads for her reckless 
kindly old father, Harry Fielding. To have invented 
that character is not only a triumph of art, but it is 
5 a good action. They say it was in his own home 
that Fielding knew her and loved her: and from 
his own wife that he drew the most charming char- 
acter in English fiction. Fiction! why fiction? why 
not history? I know Amelia just as well as Lady 

10 Mary Wortley Montagu. I believe in Colonel 
Bath almost as much as in Colonel Gardiner or the 
Duke of Cumberland. I admire the author of 
" Amelia," and thank the kind master who intro- 
duced me to that sweet and delightful companion 

15 and friend. "Amelia" perhaps is not a better 
story than '' Tom Jones," but it has the better 
ethics; the prodigal repents, at least, before for- 
giveness — whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. 
Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval 

20 of remorse for his manifold errors and short- 
comings; and is not half punished enough before 
the great prize of fortune and love falls to his share. 
I am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum- 
cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous, 

25 swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually 
surrenders without a proper sense of decorum ; the 
fond, foolish palpitating little creature! — '' Indeed, 
Mr. Jones," she says, — *' it rests with you to ap- 
point the day." I suppose Sophia is drawn from 

30 life as well as Amelia; and many a young fellow, 
no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a 



244 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

coup dc main the heart of many a kind girl who was 
a great deal too good for him. 

What a wonderful art! What an admirable gift 
of nature was it by which the author of these tales 
was endowed, and which enabled him to fix our in- 5 
terest, to waken our sympathy, to seize upon our 
credulity, so that we believe in his people — specu- 
late gravely upon their faults or their excellences, 
prefer this one or that, deplore Jones's fondness for 
play and drink, Booth's fondness for play and lo 
drink, and the unfortunate position of the wives of 
both gentlemen — love and admire those ladies with 
all our hearts, and talk about them as faithfully as 
if we had breakfasted with them this moaning in 
their actual drawing-rooms, or should meet them 15 
this afternoon in the Park! What a genius! what 
a vigour! what a bright-eyed intelligence and ob- 
servation! what a wholesome hatred for meanness 
and knavery ! what a vast sympathy ! what a cheer- 
fulness! what a manly relish of life! what a love of 20 
human kind! what a poet is here! — watching, 
meditating, brooding, creating! What multitudes 
of truths has that man left behind him ! What gen- 
erations he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly! 
What scholars he has formed and accustomed to 25 
the exercise of thoughtful humour and the manly 
play of wit! What a courage he had! What a 
dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, 
that burned bright and steady through all the 
storms of his life, and never deserted its last wreck! 30 
It is wonderful to think of the pains and misery 
which the man suffered; the pressure of want, ill- 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELD LNG 245 

ness, remorse which he endured! and that the writer 
was neit-^ier mahgnant nor melancholy, his view of 
truth never warped, and his generous human kind- 
ness never surrendered.* 

5 * In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1786, an anecdote is related of 
Harry Fielding, " in whom," says the correspondent, " good-nature 
and philanthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the promi- 
nent features." It seems that " some parochial taxes " for his house 
in Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. 
10 " At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process 
of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, 
when he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many 
years. He asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring 
tavern; and learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the con- 

15 tents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was informed 
that the collector had been twice for the money. ' Friendship has 
called for the money and had it,' said Fielding; Met the collector 
call again.' " 

It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl 

20 of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their 
relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his 
name " Fielding," and not " Feilding," like the head of the house ? 
"I cannot tell, my Lord," said he, " except it be that my branch 
of the family were the first that knew how to spell." 

25 In 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and 
Middlesex, an office then paid by fees and very laborious, without 
being particularly reputable. It may be seen from his own words, 
in the Introduction to the " Voyage," what kind of work devolved 
upon him, and in what a state he was during these last years; and 

30 still more clearly, how he comported himself through all. 

" Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost 
fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five 
different murders, all committed within the space of a week by 
different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from' his 

35 Csrace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's mes- 
senger, to attend his Grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn 
I-ields, upon some business of importance: but I excused myself 
from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, I was 
very ill with the great fatigues I had lately undergone, added to mv 

40 distemper. ^ 

"His Grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning 

with another summons, with which, though in the utmost distress I 

immediately complied; but the Duke happening, unfortunately for 

me, to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time 

4b sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could 
be invented for these murders and robberies, which were every day 
committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmit my 



246 



ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened 1 

on Fielding's last voyage to Lisbon, and when the j 

stout captain of the ship fell down on his knees, \ 

and asked the sick man's pardon — " I did not suf- | 
fer," Fielding says, in his hearty, manly way, his 5 i 

eyes lighting up as it were with their old fire — i 

'* I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to ; 

remain a moment in that posture, but immediately | 

forgave him." Indeed, I think, with his noble spirit | 

opinion in writing to his Grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, jq i 
intended to lay it before the Privy Council. ! 

" Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, j 

set myself down to work, and in about four days sent the Duke as j 

regular a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and arguments \ 

I could bring to support it, drawn out on several sheets of paper; 15 j 
and soon received a message from the Duke, by Mr. Carrington, 1 

acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all 
the terms of it would be complied with. I 

" The principal and most material of these terms was the im- [ 

mediately depositing £600 in my hands; at which small charge I 20 j 
undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the \ 

civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able I 

for the future to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain 
any time formidable to the public. 

" I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the 25 
repeated advice of my physical acquaintances and the ardent desire 
of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a 
deep jaundice; in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed 
to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire to demolish 
this gang of villains and cut-throats. ... 30 

" After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and 
within a few days after £200 of it had come into my hands, the whole 
gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed. ..." 

Further on, he says — 

" I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the 35 
winter had but a gloomy aspect; for I had not plundered the public 
or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to 
plunder* both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me 
of taking; on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming, the 
quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hatll 4° 
not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling 
from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, 
I had reduced an income of about ;£5oo a year of the dirtiest money 
upon earth to little more than ;£300, a considerable portion of which 
remained with my clerk." 45 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 247 

and unconquerable generosity, Fielding reminds 
one of those brave men of whom one reads in 
stories of English shipwrecks and disasters— of the 
officer on the African shore, when disease had 
5 destroyed the crew, and he himself is seized by 
fever, who throws the lead with a death-stricken 
hand, takes the surroundings, carries the ship out 
of the river or off the dangerous coast, and dies 
in the manly endeavour— of the wounded captain, 

10 when the vessel founders, who never loses his heart, 
who eyes the danger steadily, and has a cheery 
word for all, until the inevitable fate overwhelms 
him, and the gallant ship goes down. Such a brave 
and gentle heart, such an intrepid and courageous 

15 spirit, I love to recognise in the manly, the English 
Harry Fielding. 



Sterne an^ (Bolbsmltb 

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second 
son of a numerous race, descendants of Richard 
Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of Charles 
II.;* and children of Simon Sterne and Mary 5 
Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, near York.f 
Roger was an ensign in Colonel Hans Hamilton's 
regiment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's 
wars.ij: He married the daughter of a noted sutler. 
*' N.B., he was m debt to him," his son writes, lo 
pursuing the paternal biography — and marched 
through the world with his companion; she fol- 
lowing the regiment and bringing many children to 
poor Roger Sterne. The Captain was an irascible 
but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and he 15 
informs us that his sire was run through the body 
at Gibraltar, by a brother ofificer, in a duel which 
arose out of a dispute about a goose. Roger never 
entirely recovered from the effects of this rencontre, 

* [1664 to 1683.] 20 

t He came of a Suflfolk family — one of whom settled in Not- 
tinghamshire. The famous " starling " was actually the family 
crest. 

t [He was appointed ensign about 1710. The regiment became 
Colonel Chudleigh's in 1711, and afterwards the 34th Foot- He 25 
did not become lieutenant till late in life.] 

248 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 249 

but died presently at Jamaica,* whither he had fol- 
lowed the drum. 

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, 
in Ireland, in 1713, and travelled for the first ten 
5 years of his life, on hi-s father's march, from bar- 
rack to transport, from Ireland to England.f 

One relative of his mother's took her and her 
family under shelter for ten months at Mullingar; 
another collateral descendant of the Archbishop's 

10 housed them for a year at his castle near Carrick- 
fergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at Halifax 
in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman 
of Elvington, and parted company with his father, 
the Captain, who marched on his path of life till he 

15 met the fatal goose which closed his career. The 
most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence 
Sterne's writings we owe to his recollections of the 
military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's 
sword, and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure are 

20 doubtless reminiscences of the boy, who had lived 
with the followers of William and Marlborough, 
and had beat time with his little feet to the fifes of 
Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played with 
the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the 

25 parade-ground at Clonmel. 

^ Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was 

eighteen years old. His wit and cleverness appear 

n to have acquired the respect of his master here; 

* [March 1731.] 
30 t " It was in this parish (of Animo, in Wicklow), during our stay 
, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race' 
' whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt: the story 
IS incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where 
I hundreds of the common people flocked to see mitr—Sterm 



250 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

for when the usher whipped Laurence for writing 
his name on the newly whitewashed schoolroom 
ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the under- 
strapper, and said that the name should never be 
effaced, for Sterne was a boy of genius, and would ^ 
come to preferment. 

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne* 
to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained 
some years,* and, taking orders, got, through his 
uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and a- pre- ^^ 
bendal stall at York.f Through his wife's con- 
nections he got the living of Stillington. He mar- 
ried her in 1741, having ardently courted the young 
lady for some years previously. It was not until 
the young lady fancied herself dying, that she made ^5 
Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for 
him. One evening when he was sitting with her, 
with an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the 
reverend Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken 
in the course of his life), she said — ''My dear 20 
Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe 
I have not long to live; but I have left you every 
shilling of my fortune;" a generosity which over- 
powered Sterne. She recovered: and so they were 
married, and grew heartily tired of each other be- 25 
fore many years were over. '' Nescio quid est 
materia cum me," Sterne writes to one of his friends 

* [He was admitted sizar on 6th July 1733, became an exhibitioner 
in 1734, graduated B.A. in 1736, and M.A. 1740.] 

t [Sterne was presented to Sutton, where he generally lived till 3O 
1760, in 1738. He became prebendary of York in January 1740-41. 
in 1760 he moved to Coxwold, on being presented to the perpetual 
curacy. He held a stall at York, and the three livings, Sutton, 
Stillington, and Coxwold, till his death.] 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 2$ I 

(in dog-Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too); '' sed 
sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus quam 
unquam : " which means, I am sorry to say, " I 
don't know what is the matter with me; but I am 
5 more tired and sick of my wife than ever." * 

This to be sure was five-and-twenty years f after 
Laurey had been overcome by her generosity, and 
she by Laurey's love. Then he wrote to her of the 
delights of marriage, saying, " We will be as merry 

loand as innocent as our first parents in Paradise, 
before the arch-fiend entered that indescribable 
scene. The kindest affections will have room to 
expand in our retirement: let the human tempest 
and hurricane rage at a distance, the desolation is 

15 beyond the liorizon of peace. My L. has seen a 
polyanthus bl-ow in December?^ — Some friendly 
wall has sheltered it from the biting wind. No 
planetary influence shall reach us but that which 
presides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. The 

20 gloomy family of care and distrust shall be ban- 
ished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and 
tutelar deity. We will sing our choral songs of 
gratitude and rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. 
Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes for 

25 * " My wife returns to Toulouse, and' proposes to pass the summer 

at Eagneres. I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, 
j in Yorkshire. We all live the longer at least the happier, for having 

things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not 

the best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst." — Sterne's 
30 Letters: 20th January 1764. [His wife was Elizabeth, only daughter 

of Richard Lumley, formerly rector of Bedale. Both parents died 

in her infancy.] 

t [This is probably a mistake. The Latin letter addressed to John 

Hall Stevenson is now known to have been written in 1758. Mrs. 
35 Sterne had a fit of insanity next year, and was for a time at a 

private asylum in York.] 



252 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS ' 

thy society! — As I take up my pen, my poor pulse 
quickens, my pale' face glows, and tears are trick- 
ling down on my paper as I trace the word L." 

And it is about this woman, with whom he finds 
no fault but that she bores him, that our philan- 5 
thropist writes, " Sum fatigatus et aegrotus " — Sum 
mortaliter in amore with somebody else! That fine 
flower of love, that polyanthus over which Sterne 
snivelled so many tears, could not last for a quar- 
ter of a century! lo 

Or rather it could not be expected that a gentle- 
man with such a fountain at command should keep 
it to arroser one homely old lady, .when a score of 
younger and prettier people might be refreshed 
from the same gushing source.* It was in Decem- 13 

* In a collection of " Seven Letters by Sterne and his Friends " 
(printed for private circulation in 1844), is a letter of M. Tollot, 
who was in France with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here is a 
paragraph : — 

" Nous arrivames le lendemain a Montpellier, oil nous trouvames 20 
notre ami Mr. Sterne, sa fern ne, sa fiUe, Mr. Huet, et quelques 
autres Anglaises. J'eus, je \ us I'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en 
revoyant le bon et agreable Tristram. ... II avait ete assez long- 
temps a Toulouse, ou il se serait amuse sans sa femme, qui le 
poursuivit partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions 25 
dans cette bonne dame lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens; 
il supporte tous ces desagremens avec une patience d'ange." 

About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne 
wrote to the same gentleman to whom Tollot had written; and from 
his letter we may extract a companion paragraph: — 30 

" All which being premised, I have been for eight 

weeks smitten with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight 
underwent. I wish, dear cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps 
thou canst without my wishing it) how deliciously I cantered away 
with it the first month, two up, two down, always upon my handles, 35 
along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once— then twice, 
then three times a day, till at length I was within an ace of setting 
up my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might as well, 
considering how the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed there- 
upon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the doleful 4^ 
ditty of parting; and thou may'st conceive, dear cousin, how it 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 253 

ber 1767, that the Reverend Laurence Sterne, the 
famous Shandean, the charming Yorick, the de- 
Hght of the fashionable world, the delicious divine 
for whose sermons the whole polite world was sub- 
5 scribing, "^ the occupier of Rabelais's easy-chair, 
only fresh stuffed and more elegant than when in 
possession of the cynical old curate of Meudon,t 

altered my gait and air: for I went and came like any louden'd 
carl, and did nothing but iouer dcs sentimens with her from sun- 

10 rising even to the setting of the same; and now she is gone to the 

south of France: and to finish the comedic, I fell ill, and broke a 

vessel in my lungs, and half bled to death. Voila mon histoire ! " 

Whether husband or wife had most of the " patience d'ange " 

may be uncertain; but there can be no doubt which needed it 

15 most ! 

* " ' Tristram Shandy ' is still a greater object of admiration, the 
man as well as the book: one is invited to dinner, where he dines, 
a fortnight before. As to the volumes yet published, there is much 
good fun in them and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. 

20 Have you read his ' Sermons,' with his own comick figure, from a 
painting by Reynolds, at the head of them ? They are in the style 
I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination 
and a sensible heart; but you see him often tottering on the verge 
of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the 

25 audience." — Gray's Letters: June 22nd, 1760. 

" It having been observed that there was little hospitality in 
London — Johnson: ' Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who 
has the power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. 
The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three 

30 months.' Goldsmith: 'And a very dull fellow.' Johnson: 'Why, 
no, sir.' " — Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

" Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they 
used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance 
happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's 

35 writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. ' I am 
sure,' said she, ' they have affected me.' ' Why,' said Johnson, 
smiling, and rolling himself about^' that is because, dearest, you're 
a dunce.' When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, 
he said with equal truth and politeness, ' Madam, if I had thought 

40 so, I certainly should not have said it.' " — Ibid. 

t A passage or two from Sterne's Sermons may not be without 
interest here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of 
the Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the author of 
the Sentimental Journey ? — ■ 

45 "To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the 



254 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

— the more than rival of the Dean of Saint Pat- 
rick's, wrote the above-quoted respectable letter to 
his friend in London: and it was in April of the 



•prisons of the Inquisition — behold religion with mercy and justice 
chained down under her feet— there, sitting ghaf-tly upon a black r 
tribunal, propped up with racks, and instruments of torment. — 
Hark ! — what a piteous groan ! — See the melancholy wretch who 
uttered it, just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock- 
trial, and endure the utmost pain that a studied system of religious 
cruelty has been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered lo 
up to his tormentors. His body so wasted with sorrow and long con- 
finement, you'll see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. — Observe the 
last movement of that horrid engine. — What convulsions it has 
thrown him into ! Consider the nature of the posture in which he 
now lies stretched. — What exquisite torture he endures by it ! — 'Tis 15 
all nature can bear. — Good God ! see how it keeps his weary soul 
hanging upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not 
suffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell — 
dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames — and the insults in his 
last agonies, which this principle — this principle, that there can be 20 
religion without morality — has prepared for him." — Sermon 27th. 

The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix. 
vv. I, 2, 3, concerning a " certain Levite ": — 

" Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up 
that uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation: for, 25 
notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in many of which, no 
doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the sweets 
of retirement, &c. . . yet still ' it is not good for man to be alone; ' 
nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon 
the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in 30 
the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature will have 
her yearnings for society and friendship; a good heart wants some 
object to be kind to— and the best parts of our blood, and the purest 
of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution. 

" Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God 35 
speed him ! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the 
way: let me be wise and religious, but let me be Man; wherever thy 
Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give 
me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, ' How 
our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down ! ' — to whom I may 40 
say, ' How fresh is the face of Nature ! how sweet the flowers of 
the field ! how delicious are these fruits ! ' " — Sermon iStli. 

The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous 
" Captive." The second shows that the same reflection was sug- 
gested to the Reverend Laurence by a text in Judges as by the 45 
fille-de-chambre. 

Sterne's Sermons were published as those of " Mr. Yorick." 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 255 

same year that he was pouring out his fond heart 
to Mrs. EHzabeth Draper, wife of " Daniel Draper, 
Esquire, Councillor of Bombay, and, in 1775, chief 
of the factory of Surat— a gentleman very much re- 
5 spected in that quarter of the globe." * 

^^ '' I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, 
"on my return from Lord Bathurst's, where I 
dined "—(the letter has this merit in it, that it con- 
^ tains a pleasant reminiscence of better men than 
j 10 Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind 
\ old gentleman)— '' I got thy letter last night, Eliza, 
on my return from Lord Bathurst's; and where I 
was heard— as I talked of thee an hour without 
intermission— with so much pleasure and attention, 
^5 that the good old Lord toasted your health three 
different times; and now he is in his 85th year, 
says he hopes to live long enough to be introduced 
as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her 
eclipse all other Nabobesses as much in wealth as 
20 she^ does already in exterior and, what is far bet- 
ter " (for Sterne is nothing without his morality), 
'' in interior merit. This nobleman is an old friend 
of mine. You know he was always the protector 
of men of wit and genius, and has had those of the 
25 last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, 
&c., always at his table. The manner in which his 
notice began of me was as singular as it was polite. 
He came up to me one day as I was at the Princess 

an f * •i^''"" ■^'^P^'"' ^^"S^^t^'- of May Sclater, of a good west-country 

^ ern'^'she'fir'f '"'?!.* ^'"\'^ '" ^^^'' "^^" ^^"'^ — than four^^ 

1766.] "" °" ^ ""'"'^ *° England in December 



2^6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

of Wales's Court, and said, * I want to know you, 
Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who 
it is that wishes this pleasure. You have heard 
of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and 
Swifts have sung and spoken so much? I have 5 
lived my life with geniuses of that cast; but have 
survived them; and, despairing ever to find their 
equals, it is some years since I have shut up my 
books and closed my accounts; but you have 
kindled a desire in me of opening them once more lo 
before I die: which I now do: so go home and 
dine with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, 
for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of 
thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to 
please others, beyond whatever I knew: added to 15 
which a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling. 

" He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncom- 
mon satisfaction — for there was only a third per- 
son, and of sensibility, with us: and a most senti- 
mental afternoon till nine o'clock have we passed! * 20 
But thou, Eliza, wert the star that conducted and 

* " I am glad that you are in love: 'twill cure you at least of the 
spleen, which has a liad effect on both man and woman. I myself 
must ever have some Dulcinea in my head; it harmonises the soul; 
and in these cases I first endeavour to make the lady believe so, 25 
or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love; 
but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally: 
* L'amour,' say they, ' n'est rien sans sentiment.' Now, notwith- 
standing they make such a pother about the word, they have no 
precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same subject 30 
called love."— Sterne's Letters: May 23, 1765. 

" P.5".— My Sentimental Journey will please Mrs. J(ames) and my 
Lydia " [his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle]— " I can answer 
for those two. It is a subject which works well, and suits the frame 
of mind I have been in for some time past. I told you my design 35 
in it was to teach us to love the world and our fellow-creatures better 
than we do — so it runs most upon those gentler passions and affec- 
tions which aid so much to it." — Letters [1767]. 



S 7^ ERNE AND GOLDSMITH 257 

enlivened the discourse! And when I talked not 
of thee, still didst thou fill my mind, and warm 
every thought I uttered, for I am not ashamed to 
acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Best of all good 
5 girls! — the sufferings I have sustained all night in 
consequence of thine, Eliza, are beyond the power 
of words. . . . And so thou hast fixed thy Bra- 
min's portrait over thy writing-desk, and wilt con- 
sult it in all doubts and difficulties? — Grateful and 

10 good girl! Yorick smiles contentedly over all thou 
dost: his picture does not do justice to his own 
complacency. I am glad your shipmates are 
friendly beings " (Eliza was at Deal, going back 
to the Councillor at Bombay, and indeed it was 

15 high time she should be of¥). '' You could least 
dispense with what is contrary to your own nature, 
which is soft and gentle, Eliza; it would civilise 
savages — though pity were it thou shouldst be 
tainted with the office. Write to me, my child, 

20 thy delicious letters. Let them speak the easy care- 
lessness of a heart that opens itself anyhow, every- 
how. Such, Eliza, I write to thee! " (The artless 
rogue, of course he did!) ''And so I should ever 
love thee, most artlessly, most affectionately, if 

25 Providence permitted thy residence in the same sec- 
tion of the globe: for I am all that honour and 
affection can make me ' Thy Bramin.' " 

The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper 

until the departure of the Earl of Chatham India- 

30 man from Deal, on the 3rd of April 1767. He is 

amiably anxious about the fresh paint for Eliza's 



258 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

cabin; he is uncommonly solicitous about her com- 
panions on board: — 

" I fear the best of your shipmates are only gen- 
teel by comparison with the contrasted crew with 
which thou beholdest them. So was — you know 5 
who — from the same fallacy which was put upon 
your judgment when — but I will not mortify you! " 

" You know who " was, of course, Daniel Dra- 
per, Esquire, of Bombay — a gentleman very much 
respected in that quarter of the globe, and about 10 
whose probable health our worthy Bramin writes 
with delightful candour: — 

*' I honour you, Eliza, for keeping secret some 
things which, if explained, had been a panegyric 
on yourself. There is a dignity in venerable afiflic- ^5 
tion which will not allow it to appeal to the world 
for pity or redress. Well have you supported that 
character, my amiable, my philosophic friend! 
And, indeed, I begin to think you have as many 
virtues as my Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of 2c 
widows — pray, Eliza, if ever you are such, do not 
think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, 
because I design to marry you myself. My wife 5 
cannot live long, and I know not the woman I 
should like so well for her substitute as yourself. 2- 
'Tis true I am ninety-five in constitution, and you , 
but twenty- five; but what I want in youth, I will 
make up in wit and good-humour. Not Swift so 
loved his Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller 
his Saccharissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that 30 
you approve and honour the proposal." 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 259 

Approve and honour the proposal! The coward 
was writing gay letters to his friends this while, 
with sneering allusions to this poor foolish Brainine. 
Her ship was not out of the Downs and the charm- 
5 ing Sterne was at the '' Mount Coffee-house," with 
a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, offering 

that precious treasure his heart to Lady P ,* 

asking whether it gave her pleasure to see him un- 
happy? whether it added to her triumph that her 

10 eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool? — quot- 
ing the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness of 
blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired not to be 
led into temptation, and swearing himself the most 
tender and sincere fool in the world. It was from 

15 his home at Coxwold that he wrote the Latin Let- 
ter, which, I suppose, he was ashamed to put into 
English. I find in my copy of the Letters that 
there is a note of, I can't call it admiration, at 
Letter 112, which seems to announce that there 

i2owas a No. 3 to whom the wretched worn-out old 
scamp was paying his addresses ; f and the year 
after, having come back to his lodgings in Bond 
Street, with his '' Sentimental Journey " to launch 
upon the town, eager as ever for praise and pleasure 

^25 — as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false as he had ever 
been, death at length seized the feeble wretch, and 

* ii.e. Lady Percy, dautg-hter of Lord Bute.] 

t To Mrs. H . 

j "Coxwould: Nov. 15, 1767. 

30 " Now be a good dear woman, my H— — , and execute those com- 
missions well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss — there's 
for you ! But I have something else for you which I am fabricating 
at a great rate, and that is my ' Sentimental Journey,' which shall 



26o ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

on the i8th of March 1768, that " bale of cadaver- 
ous goods," as he calls his body, was consigned to 
Pluto.* In his last letter there is one sign of grace 

make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will give up the 
business of sentimental writing. ... 5 

" I am yours, &c. «S:c., 

" T. Shandy." 

To the Earl of . 

" Coxwould: Nov. 28, 1767. 

" My Lord, — 'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to 10 
thank your lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick: he 
was worn out, both his spirits and body, with the * Sentimental 
Journey.' 'Tis true, then, an author must feel himself, or his reader 
will not; but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feel- 
ings: I believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting as 1 5 
the body. Therefore I shall set out for town the twentieth of next 
month, after having recruited myself a week at York. I might 
indeed solace myself with my wife (who is come from France) ; 
but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental being, whatever your 
lordship may think to the contrary." 20 

[From April to August 1767, Sterne wrote a " Journal to Eliza," 
which he called the " Bramine's Journal," and described as a 
" diary of the miserable feelings of a person separated from a lady 
for whose society he languished." It has never been printed. It 
was bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr. Thomas VVashbourne 25 
Gibbs, of Bath, who, in 1851, showed it to Thackeray with a view to 
this lecture. Thackeray returned it without using it, and told the 
owner that it made him think worse of Sterne than any of the pub- 
lished writings.] 

* " In February 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by 30 
long debilitating illness, expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, 
London. There was something in the manner of his death singularly 
resembling the particulars detailed by Mrs. Quickly as attending that 
of Falstaff, the compeer of Yorick, for infinite jest, however unlike 
in other particulars. As he lay on his bed totally exhausted, he 35 
complained that his feet were cold, and requested the female at- 
tendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve him. 
He complained that the cold came up higher; and whilst the 
assistant was in the act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired 
without a groan. It was also remarkable that his death took place 40 
much in the manner which he himself had wished; and that 
the last offices were rendered to him, not in his own house, or by 
the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. 

" We are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal 
appearance, to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tal! 45 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 26 1 

■ — the real afifection with which he entreats a friend 
to be a guardian to his daughter Lydia. All his 
letters to her are artless, kind, affectionate, and not 
sentimental; as a hundred pages in his writings 
5 are beautiful, and full, not of surprising humour 
merely, but of genuine love and kindness. A 
perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man who has 
to bring his tears and laughter, his recollections, 
his personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts 

10 and feelings to market, to write them on paper, 
and sell them for money. Does he exaggerate his 
grief, so as to get his reader's pity for a false sen- 
sibility? feign indignation, so as to establish a 
character for virtue? elaborate repartees, so that 

15 he may pass for a wit? steal from other authors, 
and put down the theft to the credit side of his 
own reputation for ingenuity and learning? feign 
originality? affect benevolence or misanthropy? 
appeal to the gallery gods with claptraps and vulgar 

20 baits to catch applause? 

How much of the paint and emphasis is neces- 
sary for the fair business of the stage, and how much 

and thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance." — Sir Walter 
Scott. 

25 " It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have been 
told that his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve-buttons 
while he was expiring." — Dr. Fcrriar. 

" He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's), on the west side 
of Old Bond Street."— Handbook of London. [At Sterne's death it is 

30 said to have been a " sill:-bag shop "; it is now Agnew's Picture 
Gallery. At his death, John Crawford of Erroll, who was entertain- 
ing some of Sterne's friends, sent a footman to James Macdonald 
to inquire after his health. Macdonald, who published memoirs, 
was sent to Sterne's bedside, and heard the dying man say, " Now 
.35 it has come." A few minutes later he was dead. He was buried in 
St. George's burial-ground in the Bayswater Road, which has re- 
cently been put in order.] 



262 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

of the rant and rouge is put on for the vanity of the 
actors? His audience trusts him: can he trust him- 
self? How much was deliberate calculation and 
imposture — how much was false sensibility — and 
how much true feeling? Where did the lie begin, 5 
and did he know where? and where did the truth 
end in the art and scheme of this man of genius, 
this actor, this quack? Some time since, I was in 
the company of a French actor who began after 
dinner, and at his own request, to sing French lo 
songs of the sort called das chansons grivoises, and 
which he performed admirably, and to the dissatis- 
faction of most persons present. Having finished 
these, he commenced a sentimental ballad — it was 
so charmingly sung that it touched aU persons i5 
present, and especially the singer himself, whose 
voice trembled, whose eyes filled with emotion, 
and who was snivelling and weeping quite genuine 
tears by the time his own ditty was over. I sup- 
pose Sterne had this artistical sensibility; he used 20 
to blubber perpetually in his study, and finding his 
tears infectious, and that they brought him a great 
popularity, he exercised the lucrative gift of weep- 
ing: he utilised it, and cried on every occasion. I 
own that I don't value or respect much the cheap 25 
dribble of those fountains. He fatigues me with 
his perpetual disquiet and his uneasy appeals to 
my risible or sentimental faculties. He is always 
looking in my face, watching his effect, uncertain 
whether I think him an impostor or not; posture- 30 
making, coaxing, and imploring me. '' See what 
sensibility I have — own now that I'm very clever — 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 263 

do cry now, you can't resist this." The humour of 
Swift and Rabelais, whom he pretended to suc- 
ceed, poured from them as naturally as song does 
from a bird; they lose no manly dignity with it, 
5 but laugh their hearty great laugh out of their 
broad chests as nature bade them. But this man 
— who can make you laugh, who can make you 
cry too — never lets his reader alone, or will permit 
his audience repose: when you are quiet, he fancies 

10 he must rouse you, and turns over head and heels, 
or sidles up and whispers a n^tSty story. The man 
is a great jester, not a great humourist. He goes 
to work systematically and of cold blood; paints 
his face, puts on his rufif and motley clothes, and 

15 lays down his carpet and tumbles on it. 

For instance, take the '' Sentimental Journey," 
and see in the writer the deliberate propensity to 
make points and seek applause. He gets to '' Des- 
sein's Hotel," he wants a carriage to travel to Paris, 

20 he goes to the inn-yard, and begins what the actors 
call " business " at once. There is that little car- 
riage (the dcsobligeanfc). 

" Four months had elapsed since it had finished 
its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Des- 

25 sein's coach-yard, and having sallied out thence 
but a vamped-up business at first, though it had 
been twice taken to pieces on Mont Cenis, it had 
not profited much by its adventures, but by none 
so little, as the standing so many months unpitied 

;oin the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach-yard. 
Much, indeed, was not to be said for it — but some- 
thing might — and when a few words will rescue 



264 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can 
be a churl of them." 

Lc tour est fait! Paillasse has tumbled! Paillasse 
has jumped over the dcsohligcantc, cleared it, hood 
and all, and bows to the noble company. Does 5 
anybody believe that this is a real Sentiment? that 
thi's luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of 
Misery— out of an old cab, is genuine feeling? It 
is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Sur- 
face when he begins, '' The man who," &c. &c., 10 
and wishes to pass of¥ for a saint with his credulous, 
good-humoured dupes. 

Our friend purchases the carriage: after turn- 
ing that notorious old monk to good account, and 
efifecting (like a soft and good-natured Paillasse '5 
as he was, and very free with his money when he 
had it) an exchange of snuffboxes with the old 
Franciscan, jogs out of Calais; sets down in im- 
mense figures on the credit side of his account the 
sous he gives away to the Montreuil beggars; and, 20 
at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and whimpers 
over that famous dead donkey, for which any sen- 
timentalist may cry who will. It is agreeably and 
skilfully done— that dead jackass: like Monsieur 
de Soubise's cook on the campaign, Sterne dresses 25 
it, and serves it up quite tender and with a very 
piquant sauce. But tears and fine feelings, and a 
white pocket-handkerchief, and funeral sermon, 
and horses and feathers, and a procession o! mutes, 
and a hearse with a dead donkey inside! Psha, 30 
mountebank! I'll not give thee one penny more 
for that trick, donkey and all ! 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 265 

This donkey had appeared once before with sig- 
nal effect. In 1765, three years before the pub- 
Hcation of the " Sentimental Journey," the seventh 
and eighth volumes of '' Tristram Shandy " were 
5 given to the world, and the famous Lyons 
donkey makes his entry in those volumes (pp. 315, 

316):- 

" 'Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large 
panniers at his back, who had just turned in to 

10 collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage- 
leaves, and stood dubious, with his two forefeet at 
the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder 
feet towards the street, as not knowing very well 
whether he was to go in or no. 

15 *' Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) 
I cannot bear to strike: there is a patient endur- 
•ance of suft'ering wrote so unaffectedly in his looks 
and carriage which pleads so mightily for him, that 
it always disarms me, and to that degree that I do 

20 not like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, 
meet him where I will, whether in town or country, 
in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or 
bondage, I have ever something civil to say to him 
on my part; and, as one word begets another (if 

25 he has as little to do as I), I generally fall into con- 
versation with him; and surely never is my imagi- 
nation so busy as in framing responses from the 
etchings of his countenance; :.nd where those carry 
me not deep enough, in fiying from my own heart 

30 into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to 
think — as well as a man, upon the occasion. In 
truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of 



266 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

beings below me with whom I can do this. . . . 
With an ass I can commune for ever. 

" ' Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was imprac- 
ticable to pass betwixt him and the gate, ' art thou 
for coming in or going out?' 5 

" The ass twisted his head round to look up the 
street. 

'' ' Well! ' replied I, ' we'll wait a minute for thy 
driver.' 

" He turned his head thoughtfully^ about, and lo 
looked wistfully the opposite way. 

" ' I understand thee perfectly,' answered I : 'if 
thou takest a wrong step in this afifair, he will 
cudgel thee to death. Well ! a minute is but a min- 
ute; and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, 15 
it shall not be set down as ill spent.' 

" He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this* 
discourse went on, and, in the little peevish con- 
tentions between hunger and unsavouriness, had 
dropped it out of his mouth half-a-dozen times, and 20 
had picked it up again. 'God help thee, Jack!' 
said I, ' thou hast a bitter breakfast on't — and many 
a bitter day's labour, and many a bitter blow, I 
fear, for its wages! 'Tis all, all bitterness to thee 
— whatever life is to others! And now thy mouth, 25 
if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, 
as soot ' (for he had cast aside the stem), ' and thou 
hast not a friend perhaps in all this world that will 
give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, I pulled out 
a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave 30 
him one; and at this moment that I am telling it, 
my heart smites me that there was more of pleas- 



J 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 267 

antry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat 
a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, 
which presided in the act. 

" When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I 
5 pressed him to come in. The poor beast was heavy 
loaded — his legs seemed to tremble under him — 
he hung rather backwards, and, as I pulled at his 
halter, it broke in my hand. He looked up pensive 
in my face: ' Don't thrash me with it; but if you 

10 will you may.' ' If I do,' said I, ' I'll be d .' " 

A critic who refuses to see in this charming de- 
scription wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature speak- 
ing, and a real sentiment, must be hard indeed to 
move and to please. A page or two farther we 

15 come to a description not less beautiful — a land- 
scape and figures, deliciously painted by one who 
had the keenest enjoyment and the most tremulous 
sensibility: — 

" 'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, 

20 where is the best Muscatto wine in all France : the 
sun was set, they had done their work : the nymphs 
had tied up their hair afresh, and the swains were 
preparing for a carousal. My mule made a dead 
point. ' 'Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said I — ' I 

25 never will argue a point with one of your family as 
long as I live;' so leaping oiY his back, and 
kicking ofif one boot into this ditch and t'other 
into that, ' I'll take a dance, said I, ' so stay you 
here.' 

30 " A sunburnt daughter of labour rose up from 
the group to meet me as I advanced towards them; 
her hair, which was of a dark chestnut approach- 



26S £ JVC LIS// HUMOURISTS 

ing to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a 
single tress. ■ 

We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out 
both her hands, as if to offer them. 'And a 
cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking hold of both 5 
of them. ' We could not have done without you,' 
said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught po- 
liteness, and leading me up with the other. 

" A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed 
with a pipe, and to which he had added a tam- lo 
bourine of his own accord, ran sweetly over the pre- 
lude, as he sat upon the bank. ' Tie me up this 
tress instantly,' said Nannette, putting a piece of 
string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was 
a stranger. The whole knot fell down — we had i5 
been seven years acquainted. The youth struck 
the note upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, 
and off we bounded. 

" The sister of the youth — who had stolen her 
voice from heaven — sang alternately with her 20 
brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne roundelay: ' Viva la 
joia, adon la tristcssa' The nymphs joined in 
unison, and their swains an octave below them. 

" Viva la joia was in Nannette's lips, viva la joia 
in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across 25 
the space betwixt us. She looked amiable. Why 
could I not live and end my days thus? 'Just 
Disposer of our joys and sorrows!' cried I, 'why 
could not a man sit down in the lap of content here, 
and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go 30 
to heaven with this nut-brown maid?' Capri- 
ciously did she bend her head on one side, and 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 269 

dance up insidious. ' Then 'tis time to dance off,' 
quoth I." 

And with this pretty dance aJid chorus, the vol- 
ume artfully concludes. Even here one can't give 
5 the whole description. There is not a page in 
Sterne's writing but has something that were bet- 
ter away, a latent corruption — a hint, as of an im- 
pure presence.* 

Some of that dreary double entendre may be at- 
10 tributed to freer times and manners than ours, but 

* " With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which 

presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark 

that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends, ist, 

. on the modesty it gives pain to; or, 2ndly, on the innocence and 

15 innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or, srdly, on a certain 
oscillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining 
good and the encroaching evil of his nature— a sort of dallying with 
the devil— a fluxionary art of combining courage and cowardice, as 
when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the first time, or 

20 better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring with which a child 
touches a hot tea-urn, because it has been forbidden; so that the 
mind has its own white and black angel; the same or similar 
amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old 
debauchee and a prude — the feeling resentment, on the one hand, 

25 from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a char- 
acter; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We 
have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this 
sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound, 
because exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an 

30 offence against the good manners of human nature itself. 

" This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with 
wit, drollery, fancy, and even humour; and we have only to regret 
the misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the 
former, may be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the 

35 morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, 
which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest 
of ' Tristram Shandy,' and by supposing, instead of them, the 
presence of two or three callous debauchees. The result will be 
pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus 

40 using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and con- 
diments for the basest."— Coleridge. Literary Remains, vol. i. pp. 
141, 142. 



270 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

not all. The foul satyr's eyes leer out of the leaves' 
constantly : the last words the famous author wrote 
were bad and wicked — the last lines the poor 
stricken wretch penned were for pity and pardon. 
I think of these past writers and of one who lives 
amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent 
laughter and the sweet and unsullied page which 
the author of '' David Copperfield " gives to my 
children. 



"Jete sur cette boule, 10 

Laid, chetif et souffrant; 
Etouffe dans la foule, 
Faute d'etre assez grand: 

Une plainte touchante 

De ma bouche sortit. 15 

Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante, 

Chante, pauvre petit ! 

Chanter ou je m'abuse, 

Est ma tache ici-bas. 

Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse 20 

Ne m'aimeront-ils pas ? " 

In those charming lines of Beianger, one may 
fancy described the career, the sufferings, the 
genius, the gentle nature of Goldsmith, and the 
esteem in which we hold him. Who, of the mil- 23 
lions whom he has amused, doesn't love him? To 
be the most beloved of English writers, what a 
title that is for a man ! * A wild youth, wayward, 

* " He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never 
forgets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feel- 30 
ing distinguishes whatever he wrote, and bears a correspondence 
to the generosity of a disposition which knew no bounds but his 
last guinea. . . . 

" The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 2; I 

but full of tenderness and affection, quits the 
country village, where his boyhood has been 
passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond 
longing to see the great world out of doors, and 
5 achieve name and fortune: and after years of dire 
struggle, and neglect and poverty, his heart turn- 
■ ing back as fondly to his native place as it had 
longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he 
writes a book and a poem, full of the recollections 
loand feelings of home: he paints the friends and 
scenes of his youth, and peoples Auburn and Wake- 
field with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he 
must, but he carries away a home-relic with him, 
and dies with it on his breast. His nature is truant i 
15 m repose it longs for change: as on the journey 
it looks back for friends and quiet. He passes to- 
day in building an air-castle for to-morrow, or in 
writing yesterday's elegy; and he would fly away 
this hour, but that a cage and necessity keep him. 
2o What is the charm of his verse, of his style, and 
humour? His sweet regrets, his delicate compas- 
sion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the 
weakness which he owns? Your love for him is 
half pity. You come hot and tired from the day's 
r.5 battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who 
could harm the kind vagrant harper? Whom did 

S!?'' Vi.l7'^'^w r^i''!!,'^^ principal characters are designed, make 
the Vicar of Wakefield' one of the most delicious morsels of 
lo ed"^ ''°"'P°"*'°" °" '"''^'^^ t^^ h""^an n^'"d was ever em- 
"... We read the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' in youth and in age- 
we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author 
who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature.»-5tV Wahl 



^72 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

he ever hurt? He carries no weapon, save the harp 
on which he plays to you; and with which he de- 
Hghts great and humble, young and old, the cap- 
tains in the tents, or the soldiers round the fire, or 
the women and children in the villages, at whose 5 
porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love 
and beauty. With that sweet story of the '' Vicar 
of Wakefield " * he has found entry into every 

* " Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relat- 
ing his first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, " and to- lo 
gether with his great knowledge brought many other aids, and the 
later publications besides. Among these he announced to us the 
' Vicar of Wakefield ' as an excellent work, with the German trans- 
lation of which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud 
to us himself. ... 15 

" A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful 
subject for a modern idyl; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest 
and king in one person. To the most innocent situation which can 
be imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, for the most 
part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality in 20 
family relationships; he is a father, a master of a family, an agri- 
culturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this 
pure, beautiful earthly foundation rests his higher calling; to him 
is it given to guide men through life, to take care of their spiritual 
education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of their existence, 25 
to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and, if consolation is not 
sufficient for the present, to call up and guarantee the hope of a hap- 
pier future. Imagine such a man with pure human sentiments, 
strong enough not to deviate from them under any circumstances, 
and by this already elevated above the multitude of whom one can- .30 
not expect purity and firmness; give him the learning necessary 
for his office, as well as a cheerful, equable activity, which is even 
passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good — and you will have 
him well endowed. But at the same time add the necessary limi- 
tation, so that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, 35 
perchance, pass over to a smaller; grant him good-nature, placa- 
bility, resolution, and everything else praiseworthy that springs from 
a decided character, and over all this a cheerful spirit of compliance, 
and a smiling toleration of his own failings and those of others, — ■ 
then you will have put together pretty well the image of our excel- 40 
lent Wakefield. 

" The delineation of this character on his course of life through 
-joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the 
combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the sin- 
gular, make this novel one of the best which have ever been written; 45 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 273 

castle and every hamlet in Europe. Not one of us, 
however busy or hard, but once or twice in our 
lives has passed an evening with him, and under- 
gone the charm of his delightful music. 



5 besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite moral, nay, 
in a pure sense, Christian — represents the reward erf a good-will and 
perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional confidence 
in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil; and all 
this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was preserved 

10 from both of these by an elevation of mind that shows itself 
throughout in the form of irony, by. which this little work must ap- 
pear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author, Dr. Goldsmith, 
has, without question, a great insight into the moral world, into 
its strength and its infirmities; but at the same time he can thank- 

15 fully acknowledge that he is an Englishman, and reckon hirhly 
the advantages which his country and his nation afford him. 
The family, with the delineation of which he occupies himself, stands 
upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in 
contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still 

20 more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural 

and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on the agitated 

waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury 

or help from the vast fleet which sails around it. 

" I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in 

25 memory; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well 

as he who is induced to read it again, will thank me." — Goethe. 

Truth and Poetry; from my own Life. (English Translation, vol. i. 

PP- 378, 379-) 

" He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, 

.30 one bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid 
in his cradle by the ' good people ' who haunted his birthplace, the 
old goblin mansion on the banks of the Inny. He carries with 
him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, throughout his 
career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college: 

35 they unfit him for close study and practical science, and render 
him heedless of everything that does not address itself to his poeti- 
cal imagination and genial and festive feelings; they dispose him to 
break away from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and 
haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the 

40 country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures. . . . Though his 
circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they 
never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His 
relish for humour, and for the study of character, as we have before 
observed, brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar 

\4S kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amus- 

'j ing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store familiar features 



274 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS \ 

Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doc- 
tor Primrose, whom we all of us know.* Swift | 
was yet alive, when the little Oliver was born at j 
Pallas, or Pallasmore, in the county of Longford, i 
in Ireland. In 1730, two years after the child's 5 ; 
birth, Charles Goldsmith removed his family to | 
Lissoy, in the county Westmeath, that sweet '' Au- I 
burn " which every person who hears me has seen 
in fancy. Here the kind parson * brought up his 
eight children; and loving all the world, as his 10 
son says, fancied all the world loved him. He had 
a crowd of poor dependants besides those hungry 
children. He kept an open table; round which sat 
flatterers and poor friends, who laughed at the 
honest rector's many jokes, and ate the produce of 15 

of life which form the staple of his most popular writings."— 
Washington Irving. 

* " The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally 
written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and 
seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its -=" 
origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long 
settled at Crayford in Kent."— Prior's Life of Goldsmith. 

Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were 
clergymen; and two of them married clergymen's daughters. 

* " At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 25 

His looks adorn'd the venerable place; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man. 

With steady zeal each honest rustic ran; 30 [ 

E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, 
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. 
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, 
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 35 I 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread. 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."— TA^ Deserted Village. 40 



SrEI^NE AND GOLDSMITH 275 

his seventy acres of farm. Those vvho have seen an 
Irish house in the present day can fancy that one 
of Lissoy. The old beggar still has his allotted 
corner by the kitchen turf; the maimed old soldier 
5 still gets his potatoes and buttermilk; the poor 
cottier still asks his honour's charity, and prays 
God bless his reverence for the sixpence; the 
ragged pensioner still takes his place by right and 
sufferance. There's still a crowd in the kitchen, 

10 and a crowd round the parlour table, profusion^ 
confusion, kindness, poverty. If an Irishman comes 
to London to make his fortune, he has a half-dozen 
of Irish dependants who take a percentage of his 
earnings. The good Charles Goldsmith * left but 

15 httle provision for his hungry race when death sum- 
moned him; and one of his daughters being en- 
gaged to a Squire of rather superior dignity, 
Charles Goldsmith impoverished the rest of his 
family to provide the girl with a dowry. 

^°r^*,!,'^" }^^Y *^'^ y^^*" <^'768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry 

the Chli'rch '^^°"' ^^ ^^""^ ^^^"^ ""^'''^ ^° °''^^'"- P^'^fe^'^ent in 

". . .To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of 

■a'i wf ' ^?;"^y P°\"ds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's 
wW; I I ^''" t*^'"^ *^^* ^^'- Goldsmith added a school, 
which after having been held at more than one place in the 
vicimty, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and industry 
gave It celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of the neigh- 

SO.rnn^^.rT"^ "^'r^^ *'''^'' education. A fever breaking out 

30 among the boys about 1765, they dispersed for a time, but re- 
Tnrwv, 5 ^' ^'^^""T ,^^ continued his scholastic labours there 
until the time of his death, which happened, like that of his brother, 
hea7t Ih ^''''^■'''}\r-J. °f ':■'■? age. He was a man of an excellen 

^ heart and an amiable disposition. "-Prior's Goldsmith. 

V " Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 

1 JNiy heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee: 

Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." 

—The Traveller. 



276 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

The smallpox, which scourged all Europe at that 
time, and ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half 
the world, fell foul of poor little Oliver's face, when 
the child was eight years old, and left him scarred 
and disfigured for his life. An old woman in his 5 
father's village taught him his letters, and pro- 
nounced him a dunce: Paddy Byrne, the hedge- 
schoolmaster, took him in hand: and from Paddy 
Byrne he was transmitted to a clergyman at Elphin. 
When a child was sent to school in those days, the 10 
classic phrase was that he was pleaced under Mr. 
So-and-so's ferule. Poor little ancestors! It is 
hard to think how ruthlessly you were birched; and 
how much of needless whipping and tears our small 
forefathers had to undergo! A relative — kind uncle J 5 
Contarine — took the main charge of little Noll; 
who went through his schooldays righteously do- 
ing as little work as he could: robbing orchards, 
playing at ball, and making his pocket-money fly 
about whenever fortune sent it to him. Everybody 20 
knows the story of that famous " Mistake of a 
Night," when the young schoolboy, provided with 
a guinea and a nag, rode up to the '' best house " 
in Ardagh, called for the landlord's company over 
a bottle of wine at supper, and for a hot cake for 25 
breakfast in the morning; and found, when he 
asked for the bill, that the best house was Squire 
Featherstone's, and not the inn for which he mis- 
took it. Who does not know every story about 
Goldsmith? That is a deliehtful and fantastic 



30 



picture of the child dancing and capering about 
in the kitchen at home, when the old fiddler gibed 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 2^/ 

at him for his ughness, and called him ^sop; and 
little Noll made his repartee of *' Heralds proclaim 
aloud this saying — See ^sop dancing and his 
monkey playing." One can fancy a queer pitiful 
5 look of humour and appeal upon that little scarred 
face — the funny little dancing figure, the funny lit- 
tle brogue. In his life, and his writings, which are 
the honest expression of it, he is constantly be- 
wailing that homely face and person; anon he sur- 

loveys them in the glass ruefully; and presently 
assumes the most comical dignity. He likes to 
deck out his little person in splendour and fine 
colours. He presented himself to be examined for 
ordination in a pair of scarlet breeches, and said 

15 honestly that he did not like to go into the Church, 
because he was fond of coloured clothes. When he 
tried to practise as a doctor, he got by hook or 
by crook a black velvet suit, and looked as big and 
grand as he could, and kept his hat over a patch 

20 on the old coat: in better days he bloomed out in 
plum-colour, in blue silk, and in new velvet. For 
some of those splendours the heirs and assignees 
of Mr. Filby, the tailor, have never been paid to 
this day: perhaps the kind tailor and his creditor 

25 have met and settled their little account in Hades.* 

They showed until lately a window at Trinity 

College,t Dublin, on which the name of O. Gold- 

* " When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. 
William Filby (amounting in all to £7^) was for clothes supplied to 
30 this nephew Hodson."— Forster's Goldsmith, p. 520. 

As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) 
" 3 prosperous Irish gentleman," it is not unreasonable to wish 
that he had cleared off Mr. Filby's bill. 

t [The pane is still preserved in the library of Trinity College.] 




2/8 {ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

smith was engraved with a diamond. Whose dia- 
mond was it? Not the young sizar's, who made 
but a poor figure in that place of learning. He was 
idle, penniless, and fond of pleasure:* he learned 
his way early to the pawnbroker's shop. He wrote 5 
ballads, they say, for the street-singers, who paid 
him a crown for a poem: and his pleasure was to 
steal out at night and hear his verses sung. He 
was chastised by his tutor for giving a dance in his 
rooms, and took the box on the ear so much to lo 
heart, that he packed up his all, pawned his books 
and little property, and disappeared from college 
and family. He said he intended to go to America, 
but when'liis money was spent, the young prodigal 
came home ruefully, and the good folks there 15 
killed their calf— it was but a lean one— and wel- 
comed him back. 

After college he hung about his mother's house, 
and lived for some years the life of a buckeen— 
passed a month with this relation and that, a year 20 
with one patron, a great deal of time at the public- 
house.t Tired of this life, it was resolved that he 
should go to London, and study at the Temple; 
but he got no farther on the road to London and 

♦ " Poor fellow ! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a 25 
turkey from a goose, but when he saw it on the table.' -Cumber- 
land's Memoirs. . , 

t " These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often 
disturb the mind only in order to its future refinement: a life spent 
in phlegmatic apathy resembles those liquors which never ferment 30 
and are consequently always muddy."-GoLDSMiTH. Mcmoit of 

"h7' [Johnson] said ' Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. 
There appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was ^^ 
young.' "^Boswell. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 2'J(^ 

> 

the woolsack than DiibHn, where he gambled away 
the fifty pounds given to him for his outfit, and 
whence he returned to the indefatigable forgive- 
ness of home. Then he determined to be a doctor, 
5 and uncle Contarine helped him to a couple of years 
at Edinburgh, Then from Edinburgh he felt that 
he ought to hear the famous professors of Leyden 
and Paris, and wrote most amusing pompous let- 
ters to his uncle about the great Farheim, Du 

lo Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau, whose lectures 
he proposed to follow. If uncle Contarine believed 
those letters — if Oliver's mother believed that story 
which the youth related of his going to Cork, wath 
the purpose of embarking for America, of his 

15 having paid his passage-money, and having sent 
his kit on board; of the anonymous captain sail- 
ing away with Oliver's valuable luggage in a name- 
less ship, never to return; if uncle Contarine and 
the mother at Ballymahon believed his stories, they 

20 must have been a very simple pair; as it was a very 
simple rogue indeed who cheated them. When the 
lad. after failing in his clerical examination, after 
failing in his plan for studying the law, took leave 
of these projects and of his parents, and set out for 

25 Edinburgh, he saw mother, and uncle, and lazy 
Ballymahon, and green native turf, and sparkling 
river for the last time. He was never to look on 
old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit her. 



But me not destined such delights to share, 
My prime of life in wandering spent and care, 
Impelled, with steps unceasing to pursue 
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view; 



28o ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

That like the circle bounding earth and skies 
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies: 
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 
And find no spot of all the world my own." 

•I spoke in a former lecture of that high courage 5 
which enabled Fielding, in spite of disease, remorse, 
and poverty, always to retain a cheerful spirit and 
to keep his manly benevolence and love of truth 
intact, as if these treasures had been confided to 
him for the public benefit, and he was accountable lo 
to posterity for their honourable employ; and a 
constancy equally happy and admirable I think was 
shown by Goldsmith, whose sweet and friendly na- 
ture bloomed kindly always in the midst of a life's 
storm, and rain, and bitter weather.* The poor 15 
fellow was never so friendless but he could befriend 
some one; never so pinched and wretched but he 
could give of his crust, and speak his word of com- 
passion. If he had but his flute left, he could give 
that, and make the children happy in the dreary 20 
London court. He could give the coals in that 
queer coal-scuttle we read of to his poor neigh- 
bour: he could give away his blankets in college 
to the poor widow, and warm himself as he best 
might in the feathers: he could pawn his coat to 25 
save his landlord from gaol : when he was a scHool- 
usher he spent his earnings in treats for the boys, 

* " An * inspired idiot,' Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him 
[Johnson]. . . . Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the ' goose- 
berry fool,' but rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker sort 30 
than Johnson's; and all the more genuine that he himself could 
never become conscious of it, — though unhappily never cease attempt- 
ing to become so : the author of the genuine * Vicar of Wakefield,* 
nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine 
manhood."— Carlyle's Essays (2nd ed.), vol. iv. p. 91. 35 



STERNE AND GOLD SMITH 28 1 

and the good-natured schoolmaster's wife said 

justly that she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's 

V money as well as the young gentleman's. When he 

met liis pupils in later life, nothing would satisfy 

5 the Doctor but he must treat them still. '' Have 
you seen the print of me after Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds?" he asked of one of his old pupils. "Not seen 
it? not bought it? Sure, Jack, if your picture had 
been published, I'd not have been without it half- 

10 an-hour." His purse and his heart were every- 
body's, and his friends' as much as his own. When 
he was at the height of his reputation, and the Earl 
of Northumberland, going as Lord Lieutenant to 
Ireland, asked if he could be of any service to 

15 Doctor Goldsmith, Goldsmith recommended his 
brother, and not himself, to the great man. " My 
patrons," he gallantly said, " are the booksellers, 
and I want no others." * Hard patrons they were, 
and hard work he did; but he did not complain 

20 * " At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the 
great for subsistence; they have now no other patrons but the public, 
and the public, collectively considered, is a good and generous 
master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of 
every candidate for favour; but to make amends it is never mis- 

25 taken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into 
reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the 
touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, 
and an author should never arrogat-e to himself any share of success 
till his works have been read at least ten j^ears with satisfaction. 

30 " A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is per- 
fectly sensible of their value. Every polite member of the com- 
munity, by buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. The 
ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have been wit in the 
last age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A 

35 writer of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set only 
on fortune; and for those who have no merit,, it is but fit that such 
should remain in merited obscurity." — Goldsmith. Citizen of the 
World, Let. 84. 



282 . ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

much: if in his early writings some bitter words 
escaped him, some allusions to neglect and poverty, 
he withdrew these expressions when his works 
were republished, and better days seemed to open 
for him; and he did not care to complain that 5 
printer or publisher had overlooked his merit, or left 
him poor. The Court face was turned from honest 
Oliver, the Court patronised Beattie; the fashion 
did not shine on him — fashion adored Sterne.* 
Fashion pronounced Kelly to be the great writer lo 
of comedy of his day. A little — not ill-humour, 
but plaintiveness — a little betrayal of wounded 
pride which he showed render him not the less 
amiable. The author of the " V'icar of Wakefield " 
had a right to protest when Newbery kept back 15 
the manuscript for two years; had a right to be 
a little peevish with Sterne; a little angry when 

* Goldsmith attacked Sterne obviously enough, censuring his in- 
decency, and slighting his wit, and ridiculing his mahner, in the 
53rd letter in the " Citizen of the World." 20 

" As in common conversation," says he, " the best way to make 
the audience laugh is by first laughing yourself; so in writing, 
the properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which will 
pass upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers must 
be treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one page the author 25 
is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the 
nose; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order 
to dream for the solution," &c. 

Sterne's humourous mot on the subject of the gravest part of the 
charges, then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted 30 
here, from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott:— 

" Soon after ' Tristram ' had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire 
lady of fortune and condition, whether she had read his book. * I 
have not, Mr. Sterne,' was the answer; 'and to be plain with you, 
I am informed it is not proper for female perusal.' ' My dear good 35 
lady,' replied the author, 'do not be gulled by such stories; the 
book is like your young heir there ' (pointing to a child of three 
years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his white tunic) : ' he 
shows at times a good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in 
perfect innocence.' " 40 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 283 

Colman's actors declined their parts in his deUght- 
ful comedy, when the manager refused to have a 
scene painted for it, and pronounced its damnation 
before hearing. He had not the great pubHc with 

5 him; but he had the noble Johnson, and the ad- 
mirable Reynolds, and the great Gibbon, and the 
great Burke, and the great Fox — friends and ad- 
mirers illustrious indeed, as famous as those who, 
fifty years before, sat round Pope's table. 

'o Nobody knows, and I dare say Goldsmith's 
buoyant temper kept no account of, all the pains 
which he endured during the early period of his 
literary career. Should any man of letters in our 
day have to bear up against such, Heaven grant 

15 he may come out of the period of misfortune with 
such a pure kind heart as that which Goldsmith 
obstinately bore in his breast. The insults to which 
he had to submit are shocking to read of — slander, 
contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity pervert- 

:;o ing his commonest motives and actions; he had 
his share of these, and one's anger is roused at 
reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted 
or a child assaulted, at the notion that a creature 
so very gentle and weak, and full of love, should 

25 have had to suffer so. And he had worse than in- 
sult to undergo — to own to fault and deprecate the 
anger of rufhans. There is a letter of his extant 
to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in which poor Gold- 
smith is forced to confess that certain books sent 

30 by GrifBths are in the hands of a friend from whom 
Goldsmith had been forced to borrow money. " He 
was wild, sir," Johnson said, speaking of Goldsmith 



284 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

to Boswell, with his great, wise benevolence and 
noble mercifulness of heart — " Dr. Goldsmith was 
wild, sir; but he is so no more." Ah! if we pity 
the good and weak man who suffers undeservedly, 
let us deal very gently with him from whom misery ^ 
extorts not only tears, but shame; let us think 
humbly and charitably of the human nature that 
suffers so sadly and falls so low. Whose turn may 
it be to-morrow? What weak heart, confident be- 
fore trial, may not succumb under temptation in- ^^ 
vincible? Cover the good man who has been van- 
quished — cover his face and pass on. 

For the last half-dozen years of his life. Gold- 
smith was far removed from the pressure of any 
ignoble necessity: and in the receipt, indeed, of a ^5 
pretty large income from the booksellers his pa- 
trons. Had he lived but a few years more, his 
public fame would have been as great as his pri- 
vate reputation, and he might have enjoyed alive 
a part of that esteem which his country has ever 20 
since paid to the vivid and versatile genius who has 
touched on almost every subject of literature, and 
touched nothing that he did not adorn. Except in 
rare instances, a man is known in our profession, 
and esteemed as a skilful workman, years before the 25 
lucky hit which trebles his usual gains, and stamps 
him a popular author. In the strength of his age, 
and the dawn of his reputation, having for backers 
and friends the most illustrious literary men of his 
time,* fame and prosperity might have been in 30 

* " Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural 
History; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken 
lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile stone in the 



STEKJ^E AND GOLDSMITH 28$ 

store for Goldsmith, had fate so willed it, and, at 
forty-six, had not sudden disease carried him off. 
I say prosperity rather than competence, for it is 
probable that no sum could have put order into 
5 his affairs, or sufficed for his irreclaimable habits 
of dissipation. It must be remembered that he 
owed i2ooo when he died. '* Was ever poet," 
Johnson asked, " so trusted before? " As has been 
the case with many another good fellow of his na- 

10 tion, his life was tracked and his substance wasted 
by crowds of hungry beggars and lazy dependants. 
If they came at a lucky time (and be sure they knew 
his affairs better than he did himself, and watched 
his pay-day), he gave them of his money: if they 

15 begged on empty-purse days, he gave them his 
promissory bills: or he treated them to a tavern 
where he had credit; or he obliged them with an 
order upon honest Mr. Filby for coats, for which 
he paid as long as he could earn, and until the 

20 shears of Filby were to cut for him no more. 
Staggering under a load of debt and labour, 
tracked by bailiffs and reproachful creditors, run- 
ning from a hundred poor dependants, whose ap- 
pealing looks were perhaps the hardest of all pains 

25 for him to bear, devising fevered plans for the mor- 
row, new histories, new comedies, all sorts of new 

Edgware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned 
post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him 
an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator 'appeared 

30 to his landlady and her children; he was The Gentleman. Mr. 
Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad, and I, went to visit him at 
this place a few days afterwards. He was not at horrte; but having 
a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious 

j scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a 

'35 blacklead pencil." — Boswell. 



286 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

literary schemes, flying from all these into seclu- 
sion, and out of seclusion into pleasure — at last, at 
five-and-forty, death seized him and closed his 
career. "'^ I have been many a time in the cham- 
bers in the Temple which were his, and passed up 5 
the staircase, which Johnson and Burke and Rey- 
nolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind 
Goldsmith — the stair on which the poor women 
sat weeping bitterly when they heard that the 
greatest and most generous of all men was dead lo 
within the black oak door.f Ah! it was a different 
lot from that for which the poor fellow sighed, 
when he wrote with heart yearning for home those 
most charming of all fond verses, in which he 
fancies he revisits Auburn: — 15 



* " When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, ' Your 
pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of 
fever which you have; is your mind at ease ? ' Goldsmith an- 
swered it was not." — Dr. Johnson {in Boswell). 

" Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone 20 
much further. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the 
fear of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every 
artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his failings 
be remembered; he was a very great man." — Dr. Johnson to Boswell, 
July 5th, 1774. 23 

t " When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into 
tears. Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger 
went to him; but at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times 
of great family distress he had not been known to do, left his " 
painting-room, and did not re-enter it that day. ... 50 

" The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with 
mourners, the reverse of domestic; women without a home, without 
domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to 
weep for; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom 
he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. And he had 35 
domestic mourners, too. His cofifin was reopened at the request of 
Miss Horneck and her sister (such was the regard he was known to 
have for them !) that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in 
Mrs. Gwyn's possession when she died, after nearly seventy years." 
— Forster's Goldsmith. 40 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 28^ 

" Here, as I take my solitary rounds, 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train. 
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 

In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; 
To husband out life's taper at the close. 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose; 
I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill. 
Around my fire an evening group to draw. 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw; 
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew — 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past. 
Here to return, and die at home at last. 

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline ! 
Retreats from care that never must be mine — 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labour with an age of ease; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try. 
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches born to work and weep 
Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep; 
No surly porter stands in guilty state 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate: 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
Whilst resignation gently slopes the way; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last. 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 

In these verses, I need not say with what melody, 
with what touching truth, . with what exquisite 
beauty of comparison — as indeed in hundreds more 



288 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

pages of the writings of this honest sotfl — the whole 
character of the man is told — his humble confes- 
sion of faults and weakness; his pleasant little 
vanity, and desire that his village should admire 
him; his simple scheme of good in which every- 
body was to be happy — no beggar was to be re- 
fused his dinner — nobody in fact was to work 
much, and he to be the harmless chief of the 
Utopia, and the monarch of the Irish Yvetot. He 
would have told again, and without fear of their lo; 
failing, those famous jokes * which had hung fire 

* " Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in com- 
pany was the occasion of his sometimes appearing to such dis- 
advantage, as one should hardly have supposed possible in a man 
of his genius. When his literary reputation had risen deservedly ^5 
high, and his society was much courted, he became very jealous 
of the extraordinary attention which was everywhere paid to John- 
son. One evening, in a circle of wits, he found fault with me for 
talking of Johnson as entitled to the honour of unquestionable su- 
periority. ' Sir,' said he, ' you are for making a monarchy of what 20 
should be a republic' 

" He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with 
fluent vivacity, and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all 
present, a German who sat next him, and perceived Johnson rolling 
himself as if about to speak, suddenly stopped him, saying, ' Stay, 25 
stay — Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething.' This was no 
doubt very provoking, especially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, 
who frequently mentioned it with strong expressions of indigna- 
tion. 

" It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content 3^ 
to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be 
consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small j 
particular. Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his 
friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy. ... I remember one ! 
day, when Tom Davies was telling that Doctor Johnson said—' We 35 | 
are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,' Goldsmith seemed dis- I 
pleased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, { 
* I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.' " | 

This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of 
Goldsmith — which may well irritate biographers and admirers, and 40 1 
also those who take that more kindly and more profound view of 
Boswell's own character, which was opened up by Mr. Carlyle's 
famous article on his book. No wonder that Mr. Irving calls Bos- 

i 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 289 

in London; he would have talked of his great 
friends of the Club— of my Lord Clare and my 
Lord Bishop, my Lord Nugent— sure he knew 
them intimately, and was hand and glove with some 
5 of the best men in town — and he would have 
spoken of Johnson and of Burke, and of Sir Joshua 
who had painted him — and he would have told 
wonderful sly stories of Ranelagh and the Pan- 
theon, and the masquerades at Madame Cornelys; 

ro and he would have toasted, with a sigh, the Jes- 
samy Bride — the lovely Mary Horneck. 

The figure of that charming young lady forms 
one of the prettiest recollections of Goldsmith's 
life. She and her beautiful sister, who married 

[5 Bunbury, the graceful and humorous amateur 
artist of those days, when Gilray had but just begun 
to try his powers, were among the kindest and 

well an " incarnation of toadyism." And the worst of dt is, that 
Johnson himself has suffered from this habit of the Laird of 

!0 Auchinleck's. People are apt to forget under what Boswellian 
stimulus the great Doctor uttered many hasty things:— things no 
more indicative of the nature of the depths of his character than the 
phosphoric gleaming of the sea, when struck at night, is indicative 
of radical corruption of nature ! In truth, it is clear enough on the 

;5 whole that both Johnson and Goldsmith appreciated each other, 

and that they mutually knew it. They were, as it were, tripped up 

and flung against each other, occasionally, by the blundering and 

silly gambolling of people in company. 

Something must be allowed for Boswell's " rivalry for Johnson's 

,0 good graces" with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for 
Oliver was intimate with the Doctor before his biographer was,— 
and, as we all remember, marched off with him to " take tea with 
Mrs. Williams " before Boswell had advanced to that honourable 

^ degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell— though he perhaps 

5 showed more talent in his delineation of the Doctor than is gener- 
ally ascribed to him— had not faculty to take a fair view of two 
great men at a time. Besides, as Mr. Forster justly remarks, "he 
was impatient of Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaint- 
ance." — Life and Adventures, p. 292. 



^9° ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

dearest of Goldsmith's many friends, cheered and 
pitied him, travelled abroad with him, made him 
welcome at their home, and gave him many a 
pleasant holiday. He bought his finest clothes to 
figure at their country-house at Barton — he wrote 5 
them droll verses. They loved him, laughed at 
him, played him tricks and made him happy. He 
asked for a loan from Garrick, and Garrick kindly 
supplied him, to enable him to go to Barton: but 
there were to be no more holidays and only one lo 
brief struggle more for poor Goldsmith. A lock 
of his hair was taken from the coffin and given to 
the Jessamy Bride. She lived quite into our time. 
Hazlitt saw her an old lady, but beautiful still, in 
Northcote's painting-room, who told the eager 15 
critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith 
had admired her. The younger Colman has left 
a touching reminiscence of him (vol. i. 63, 64) : — 

'' I was only five ye^rs old," he says, " when 
Goldsmith took me on his knee one evening whilst 20 
he was drinking coffee with my father, and began 
to play with me, which amiable act I returned, 
with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, by giving 
him a very smart slap on the face: it must have 
been a tingler, for it left the marks of my spiteful 25 
paw on his cheek. This infantile outrage was fol- 
lowed by summary justice, and I was locked up 
by my indignant father in an adjoining room to 
undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. Here 
I began to howl and scream most abominably, 30 
Nvhich was no bad step towards my liberation, since 
those who were not inclined to pity me mi^ht be 



i 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 29 1 

likely to set me free for the purpose of abating a 
nuisance. 

'' At length a generous friend appeared to ex- 
tricate me from jeopardy, and that generous friend 
5 was no other than the man I had so wantonly mo- 
lested by assault and battery — it was the tender- 
hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in 
his hand and a smile upon his countenance, which 
was still partially red from the effects of my petu- 

10 lance. I sulked and sobbed as he fondled and 
soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized 
the propitious moment of returning good-humour, 
when he put down the candle and began to conjure. 
He placed three hats, which happened to be m the 

15 room, and a shilling under each. The shillings, 
he told me, were England, France, and Spain. 
* Hey presto cockalorum!' cried the Doctor, and 
lo, on uncovering the shillings, which had been 
dispersed each beneath a separate hat, they were 

20 all found congregated under one. I was no poli- 
tician at five years old, and therefore might not 
have wondered at the sudden revolution which 
brought England, France, and Spain all under one 
crown; but as also I was no conjurer, it amazed 
i 25 nie beyond measure. . . . From that time, when- 
ever the Doctor came to visit my father, * I plucked 
his gown to share the good man's smile; ' a game 
at romps constantly ensued, and we were always 
cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our un- 
( 30 equal companionship varied somewhat as to sports 
as I grew older; but it did not last long: my senior 
playmate died in his forty-fifth year, when I had 



292 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

attained my eleventh. ... In all the numerous ac- 
counts of his virtues and foibles, his genius and 
absurdities, his knowledge of nature and ignorance 
of the world, his ' compassion for another's woe ' 
was always predominant; and my trivial story of 5 
his humouring a froward child weighs but as a 
feather in the recorded scal'e of his benevolence." 

Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain, if you 
like — but merciful, gentle, generous, full of love 
and pity. He passes out of our life, and goes to ^^ 
render his account beyond it. Think of the poor j 
pensioners weeping at his grave; think of the I 
noble spirits that admired and deplored him ; think I 
of the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph — and 
of the wonderful and unanimous response of af- '5 
fection with which the world has paid back the 
love he gave it. His humour delighting us still: 
his song fresh and beautiful as when first he 
charmed with it: his words in all our mouths: his 
very weaknesses beloved and familiar — his benevo- 20 
lent spirit seems still to smile upon us; to do gen- 
tle kindnesses: to succour with sweet charity: to 
soothe, caress, and forgive: to plead with the for- 
tunate for the unhappy and the poor. 

His name is the last in the list of those men of 25 
humour who have formed the themes of the dis- 
courses which you have heard so kindly. 

Long before I had ever hoped for such an audi- 
ence, or dreamed of the possibility of the good for- 
tune which has brought me so many friends, I was 30 
at issue with some of my literary brethren upon a 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 293 

point — which they held from tradition I think 
rather than experience — that our profession was 
neglected in this country; and that men of letters 
were ill received and held in slight esteem. It 

5 would hardly be grateful of me now to alter my old 
opinion that we do meet with good-will and kind- 
ness, with generous helping hands in the time of 
our necessity, with cordial and friendly recognition. 
What claim had any one of these of whom I have 

10 been speaking, but genius? What return of grati- 
tude, fame, afifection, did it not bring to all? 

What punishment befell those who were unfor- 
tunate among them, but that which follows reck- 
less habits and careless lives? For these faults a 

15 wit must sufifer like the dullest prodigal that ever 
ran in debt. He must pay the tailor if he wears 
the coat; his children must go in rags if he spends 
his money at the tavern; he can't come to London 
and be made Lord Chancellor if he stops on the 

20 road and gambles away his last shilling at Dublin. 
And he must pay the social penalty of these follies 
too, and expect that the world will shun the man 
of bad habits, that women will avoid the man of 
loose life, that prudent folks will close their doors 

25 as a precaution, and before a demand should be 
made on their pockets by the needy prodigal. 
With what difficulty had any one of these men to 
contend, save that eternal and mechanical one of 
want of means, and lack of capital, and of which 

30 thousands of young lawyers, young doctors, young 
soldiers and sailors, of inventors, manufacturers, 
shopkeepers, have to complain? Hearts as brave 



294 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any wit 
or poet, sicken and break daily in the vain en- 
deavour and unavailing struggle against life's dif- 
ficulty. Don't we see daily ruined inventors, grey- 
haired midshipmen, balked heroes, blighted 5 
curates, barristers pining a hungry life out in 
chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their 
garrets, whilst scores of them are rapping at the 
door of the successful quack below? If these suf- 
fer, who is the author', that he should be exempt? lo 
Let us bear our ills with the same constancy with 
which others endure them, accept our manly part 
in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can 
conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing 
Goldsmith's improvidence, or Fielding's fatal love i5 
of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running 
races with the constable. You never can outrun 
that sure-footed officer — not by any swiftness or by 
dodges devised by any genius, however great; and 
he carries ofif the Tatler to the spunging-house, or 20 
taps the Citizen of the World on the shoulder as he 
would any other mortal. 

Does society look down on a man because he 
is an author? I suppose if people want a buffoon 
they tolerate him only in so far as he is amusing; 25 
it can hardly be expected that they should respect 
him as an equal. Is there to be a guard of honour 
provided for the author of the last new novel or 
poem? how long is he to reign, and keep other 
potentates out of possession? He retires, grum- 30 
bles, and prints a lamentation that literature is 
despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 295 

parties, he does not state that the army Is despised: 
if Lord C. no longer asks Counsellor D. to dinner, 
Counsellor D. does not announce that the bar is 
insulted. He is not fair to society if he enters it 

5 with this suspicion hankering about him; if he is 
doubtful about his reception, how hold up his head 
honestly, and look frankly in the face that world 
about which he is full of suspicion? Is he place- 
hunting, and thinking in his mind that he ought 

10 to be made an Ambassador like Prior, or a Secre- 
tary of State like Addison? his pretence of equality 
falls to the ground at once; he is scheming for a 
patron, not shaking the hand of a friend, when he 
meets the world. Treat such a man as he deserves; 

15 laugh at his buffoonery, and give him a dinner and 
a hon jour; laugh at his self-sufficiency and absurd 
assumptions of superiority, and his equally ludi- 
crous airs of martyrdom: laugh at his flattery and 
his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth the having. 

20 Let the wkg have his dinner and the hireling his 
pay, if you want him, and make a profound bow to 
the grand homme incompris, and the boisterous 
martyr, and show him the door. The great world, 
the great aggregate experience, has its good sense, 

25 as it has its good humour. It detects a pretender, 
as it trusts a loyal heart. It is kind in the main: 
how should it be otherwise than kind, when it is so 
wise and clear-headed? To any literary man who 
says, " It despises my profession," I say, with all 

30 my might — no, no, no. It may pass over your 
individual case — how many a brave fellow has 
failed in the race and perished unknown in the 



296 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 

struggle! — but it treats you as you merit in the 
main. . If you serve it, it is not unthankful ; if you 
please it, it is pleased; if you cringe to it, it de- 
tects you, and scorns you if you are mean; it re- 
turns your cheerfulness with its good humour; it 5 
deals not ungenerously with your weaknesses; it 
recognises most kindly your merits; it gives you 
a fair place and fair play. To any one of those 
men of whom we have spoken was it in the main 
ungrateful? A king might refuse Goldsmith a pen- 10 
sion, as a publisher might keep his masterpiece and 
the delight of all the world in his desk for two 
years; but it was mistake, and not ill-will. Noble 
and illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Ad- 
dison! dear and honoured memories of Goldsmith 15 
and Fielding! kind friends, teachers, benefactors! 
who shall say that our country, which continues 
to bring you such an unceasing tribute of applause, 
admiration, love, sympathy, does not do honour to 
the literary calling in the honour which it bestows 20 
upon you? 



THE END. 



II 



NOTES. 



SWIFT. 



1. 6. — Harlequin. A popular character in the Italian comedy. 
He was a buffoon, dressed in party-colored clothes, who amused 
the audience by horse play. 

2. 12. — The humourous writer, etc. Thackeray is here doubt- 
less referring to a famous humourist of the nineteenth century — 
himself. 

2. i6. — To the best of his means, etc. This sentence is an 
example of Thackeray's occasional carelessness in style. Note 
the extreme awkwardness of the constructioji. 

3. 3. — Kilkenny. Town in the county of Kilkenny, in the 
southern part of Ireland. Congreve, Farquhar, and Berkeley also 
attended this grammar school. In view of Swift's quarrelsome 
disposition, it seems not inappropriate that his early life should 
have had associations in a place made famous by the legend of the 
Kilkenny cats. 

3. 5. — Was wild. It does not appear that Swift was dissipated. 
He was morose and rebellious. Extreme poverty is not apt to 
lessen the pride and sensitiveness of an undergraduate like Swift. 
He did well in Greek and Latin, was poor in philosophy, and, 
curiously enough, the future Dean was marked negligenter in 
theology. 

4. 8. — He was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in 
Dublin, in April, 17 13, and was installed on June 13. 

6. I7« — Wotild you have liked to be a friend of the great Dean ? 
The majority of Swift's readers would to-day undoubtedly answer 
in the affirmative. 

8. II. — His servility. This is surely unfair. Swift was not a 

297 



298 NOTES. 

cringing toady, nor a boot-licker. Manliness was an essential 
feature of his character; and it is well known that in dealing out 
patronage he always served himself last, especially when there 
was not enough to go around. 

p. 14. — Macheath. A highwayman who is the hero of Gay's 
Beggars' Opera (1728). 

II. 7. — Condottieri. Italian for "soldiers of fortune." 

11. 8. — The Boyne. Battle fought July i, 1690, in Ireland, in 
which King William III decisively defeated the deposed Stuart 
King James II. The Boyne is the most important river in eastern 
Ireland, being 65 miles long. An obelisk, 150 feet high, now com- 
memorates the great battle. 

12. 6. — South Sea Bubble. The South Sea Company was 
established by Lord Treasurer Harley in 171 1 with the design of 
providing for the extinction of the public debt, then about 
^10,000,000. The debt was assumed by a number of merchants, 
the Government agre ;ing to pay 6 per cent, interest for a certain 
period, securing the sum by making permanent certain impost 
duties. The Government granted to purchasers of the fund a 
monopoly of the trade to the South Sea (the coast of Spanish 
America), and the Company was organised under the name 
"South Sea Company." The prevailing opinion was that enor- 
mous riches awaited all stockholders ; the Company flourished ; it 
vied with the Bank of England in controlling English finapces. 
In 1720 the Company assumed the entire debt of over ^^30, 000, 000, 
bearing interest at 5 per cent. The stock was in great demand. 
A rage for speculation followed. The sum of ;^iooo was paid for 
a single share of £100. Other bubbles followed suit ; to make oil 
from sunflowers, to extract silver from lead, etc. The streets near 
'Change Alley were lined with desks. As the year 1720 drew to 
a close, the bubble burst. Thousands of families were ruined. 

12. 24. — Coup. A political stroke, usually called roup d'e'tat. 

13. I. — Copenhagen. The city was bombarded in 1807. 
"Shortly after the trca' ' of Tilsit Canning learnt that Napoleon 
meant to seize the fleet of Denmark, which was at that time neutral, 
and to employ it against Great Britain. A British fleet and army 
Were sent to Copenhagen, and the Crown Prince of Denmark was 
asked to deliver up the Danish fleet on a promise that it should be 



NOTES. 299 

restored at the end of the war. On his refusal, Copenhagen was 
bombarded till at last the Danes gave way. The fleet was sur- 
rendered, and the British Government, on the plea that it had 
been driven to use force, refused to be bound by its offer to restore 
the ships ultimately to their owners. There were many in Eng- 
land who found fault with the whole proceeding, and even George 
III seems to have been very much of their opinion. Speaking to 
the gentleman who had carried to the Crown Prince the message 
asking him to give up the fleet, the old King asked whether he 
found the Prince upstairs or downstairs. ' He was on the ground 
floor, please your Majesty,' was the reply. 'I am glad of it for 
your sake, ' said the King ; ' for if he had half my spirit, he would 
have kicked you downstairs.' " (Gardiner's Student's History of 
England^ p. 860.) 

15. I. — Poetical pozver. Although Swift wrote many clever 
rimes and witty verses, his poetical powers were very slight, and 
the real reason why he was afraid to use them was because he did 
not possess them. No great writer ever made more clearly a false 
start in literature than did Swift. As the most convincing proof 
of Bacon's lack of poetic genius lies in his own verse-writing, so 
no one can read Swill's early poems without mentally saying 
Amen to Dryden's famous remark, "Cousin Swift, you will never 
be a poet." It was not the brutality of Dryden's statement that 
galled Swift ; it was its truth. Let readers examine Swift's early 
Pindaric Odes, and judge for themselves. 

15. 10. — Sir Williain Temple. The elegant essayist, /fV/Zra/^/zr 
and dilettante, born 1628, died 1698. 

15. 23. — Manttia va, etc. From Vergil, Ed. ix. 28. "Alas, 
Mantua, too near the wretched Cremona ! '' An excellent quip. 

19. 10. — Moxa. "A soft woolly mass prepared from the young 
leaves of Artemisia Ckinensis, and used as a cautery by burning 
it on the skin ; hence, any substance used in a like manner, 
as cotton impregnated with niter, amadou." {Webster's Diet.) 
Amadou is a spongy substance growing on trees. 

20. 25. — Plates-bandes. Flower-beds. 

20. 26. — Epicurus. The founder of the Epicurean philosophy 
(see W. Wallace's admirable exposition of this system). He was 
born on the island of Samos in 337, or, as some say, in 341 B.C. 



300 NOTES. 

He removed to Athens about 307. His personal character was 
amiable and virtuous, and the real nature of his philosophical 
teaching has been commonly misrepresented. He died 270 B.C. 

20. 26. — Diogenes Laertius. This name was ascribed to a kind 
of scrap-book, labeled "Lives and Doctrines of Famous Philo- 
sophers." Of Laertius himself we know nothing. 

20. 27. — Semiramis [Legendary and Mythical]. The wife of 
Ninus, founder of the Assyrian kingdom — a woman of great 
beauty, passion, and power. She is supposed to have flourished 
about 2200 B.C. 

20. 27. — Hesperides. These were the daughters of the Night, 
who guarded the golden apples belonging to Here or Juno. [See 
any Classical Dictionary, or Professor Gayley's excellent book, 
Classic Myths in English Literature, published by Ginn & Co.] 

21. I. — Mcccenas. Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, born between 74 
and 64 B.C., died 8 B.C. He was a statesman, but chiefly famous as 
a patron of literary men. He was a friend of young Octavian and 
his most trusted counsellor. He created and formed the center of a 
literary circle at Rome, which included Vergil, Horace, and others. 

21. I. — Strabo. A Greek geographer, born 63 B.C., died after 
21 A.D. He traveled extensively, wrote histories, and particularly 
a geography in seventeen books. 

21. 3. — Pythagoras. A Greek philosopher, supposed to have 
been born at Samos about 582 B.C. He is chiefly known on account 
of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. He laid the greatest 
stress on simplicity and self-restraint in living. 

23. I. — Bishop Kennet. White Kennett, D.D., bishop of 
Peterborough (1660-1728). Sir Walter Scott published this de- 
scription of Swift from a MS. in the British Museum. Scott says : 
*'The picture is powerfully drawn, though with a coarse and in- 
vidious pencil." — Swift's Works, ed. Scott, I. 125. 

26. 4. — Bolingbroke. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke 
(1678-175 1). His philosophical views exerted a powerful influence 
on contemporary men of letters ; shown most prominently perhaps 
in Pope's Essay on Man. He was titled in 17 12, and was Prime 
Minister in 17 14. A brilliant and rather shallow man. 

26. \1. — Gay. The well-known poet (1688-1732). 

28, 5. — Peccavi. I am a sinner. 



NOTES. 301 

29. 8. — Consciousness of his oxun scepticism. We shall probably 
never know the exact attitude of Swift toward religious dogmas — 
perhaps he did not know himself. His mind was apparently- 
skeptical by nature, but he abhorred and despised free-thinkers, 
and belaboured them soundly. He was the most powerful cham- 
pion of Christianity the age of Anne produced, but he certainly 
derived little peace and consolation from it for his own suffering 
soul. He may have thought that the Church was a necessary 
social institution, and hence regarded its assailers as little better 
than anarchists. At times we are inclined to class him as a skeptic, 
as Thackeray does ; but when we read his beautiful and passionate 
" Prayers for Mrs. Johnson," we have to make many reservations. 

29. 22. — Abiidah. He was a wealthy merchant of Bagdad, who 
figures in Tales of the Genii, by James Ridley (1736-65). Abudah 
meets with strange adventures in his quest for a talisman which he 
is driven to seek by the threats of a little old hag who haunts him by 
night and makes his life miserable. At last he finds that the inesti- 
mable talisman is to obey God and to keep his commandments ; and 
he also discovers that all his wonderful adventures have been only 
a dream. "And there too was Abudah, the merchant, with the ter- 
rible old woman hobbling out of the box in his bedroom." — Dickens. 

30. 8. — Sarja indignatio. ' ' According to the precise instructions 
of his Will, Swift was buried privately, on the 22nd of October, at 
twelve o'clock at night: and, likewise by his own instructions, on 
a tablet of black marble over his grave in the Cathedral, in 
' large letters, deeply cut, and strongly gilded, ' there were in- 
scribed the words — 

HIC DEPOSITUM EST CORPUS 

JONATHAN SW^IFT, S. T. P. 

HUJUS ECCLESI^ CATHEDRALIS 

DECANI: 

UBI S^VA INDIGNATIO 

ULTERIUS COR LACERARE NEQUIT. 

ABI VIATOR 

ET IMITARE, SI POTERIS, 

STRENUUM PRO VIRILI LIBERTATIS VINDICEM. 

OBIIT ANNO (1745) 

MENSIS (OCTOBRIS) DIE (19) 

-iETATIS ANNO (78)." 

— Craik's Life of Swift, II. 258. 



302 NOTES, 

Possibly no greater contrast in tombstone inscriptions can be 
found than that exhibited by the graves of Swift and of his 
beloved friend and contemporary humourist, Gay, and it well 
illustrates the difference in temper of their comic genius. Swift, 
in his final and terrible indictment against the sufferings of life, 
is a strange contrast to Gay, who laughs from his tomb as he 
laughed through life, 

" Life is a jest, and all things show it. 
I thought so once, and now I know it." 

There never lived a more consistent pessimist than Swift, and it 
is hardly just for Thackeray to hint that Swift rages at life 
because of his personal disappointments. His pessimism went 
far deeper than that. 

30. 17. — Drapier's Letters. The first of these letters, signed 
**M. B. Drapier," appeared in 1724; they were addressed to the 
Irish people, and immediately exerted a powerful influence. He 
advised them not to touch the copper money coined by one William 
Wood ("Wood's half-pence "), who received a Government patent, 
July 12, 1722. This business was a political *'job" of the most 
perfidious kind, and was killed by Swift's fiery letters. Whether 
Swift's motive was pure and disinterested patriotism or not, we do 
not know. He raged at seeing another example of human base- 
ness and treachery, and fought it as •only Swift could fight when 
aroused. At any rate he succeeded, and became the idol of the 
Irish, who rightly looked upon him as their champion. For a 
good discussion of this whole matter, see Craik's Life of S^viftj 
Chapter XIII, '' Swift as Irish Patriot." 

30. 24. — Samson. See the book of Judges, Chapter XV. 

31. II. — Modest Proposal. This famous satire was published in 
1729, and ranks as one of Swift's best pieces. Underneath the 
laughably extravagant "proposal," one sees the moral indignation 
and the moral power of the author. The object of this satire was 
not to "rage against children"; it was to show that many Irish 
children were destined to a worse fate even than being eaten. 
For mock gravity, sustained tone, and underlying tragic earnest- 
ness, this essay is unsurpassed in English. Nor does Swift always 
"rage against marriage." In his Letter to a Very Young Lady 



NOTES. 303 

on her Marriage, he brutally attacks the kind of marriages that 
he often witnessed; but he holds up a high ideal of what marriage 
should really be, and emphasises the virtues of true companion-" 
ship. Swift's brutality and contemptuous manner in this notable 
letter does not wholly conceal from the judicious its solid wisdom. 
32. 16. — '-^Roasting.'" This slang word has enjoyed unusual 
vitality and long life. 

32. 19. — On nait rotisseur. One is born a cook — cooks are 
born, not made, 

33. 27. — Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming lines of the poet. 
In Macaulay 's Essay on Addison, he says, "About thirty years 
before * Gulliver's Travels ' appeared, Addison wrote these lines: — 

' Jamque acies inter meriias sese arduus infert 
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 
Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam,' " 

["And now towering he rushes forward into the midst of their 
lines — this awful leader of the Pygmies, who, heavy in his gait, 
overtops all others with his giant-like bulk and rises above them 
half an ell."] 

34. I. — The mast of some great ammiral. Paradise Lost, \. 2<^2>^ 
294. 

34. 17. — Unpronounceable country. The country of the Hou- 
yhnhnms. Perhaps we should pronounce the word " Whinnems," 
as it is doubtless meant to suggest the whinny of a horse. 

35. 35. — Decisio7t of meers. Meer, or mere, is a boundary. 
38. 29. — Drapier Bicker staff Gulliver. " Bickerstaff " was the 

name assumed by Swift in his famous "Predictions" in ridicule 
of Partridge, the almanac-maker. 

41. 24. — A sentimental Champolliott. Jean Francois Cham- 
pollion (1 790-1832), a famous linguist, discovered a key to hier- 
oglyphics of ancient Egypt. 

44, I. — Harley's and Peterborough's. Robert Harley was the 
first Earl of Oxford and Lord High Treasurer, receiving both title 
and place from Queen Anne in 171 1. He died in 1724. Charles 
Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, was born in 1658, and died in 
1735- 



304 NOTES. 

45. 15. — Cadenus. Of course an anagram for Decanus = Dean. 

46. 14. — Ariadne. The daughter of Minos, king of Crete, and 
the lover of Theseus. She gave him the famous clew of thread 
for the labyrinth. See Gay ley, 

49. 19. — Sheridan. Thomas Sheridan (1687-1738), a school- 
master and close friend of Swift. The latter made his acquaintance 
in 17 13, upon arriving in Dublin to take the Deanery. He became 
Swift's constant companion, and the Dean took his place in the 
school when Sheridan was ill. Swift got him a living in 1725. 
He had a deserved reputation for wit in conversation. He wrote 
of himself, "I am famous for giving the best advice and following 
the worst." Swift asked Sheridan to let him know when he 
(Swift) showed any sign of avarice. Sheridan accordingly wrote 
full data on a paper, and gave it to Swift. This alienated the two 
friends. 

49. 29. — The extract from Voltaire's letter may be thus trans- 
lated : * ' Mr. Swift is Rabelais in his good senses and in good 
company. He has not, to be sure, Rabelais' mirth, but he has all 
the keenness, the reasonableness, the discretion in choosing, the 
good taste which our cure of Meudon has not. His verses have a 
queer savour, and are all but inimitable ; tasteful jesting falls to 
his share in verse and in prose ; but to understand him well one 
should take a trip into his country." 

For other criticism of Swift by Thackeray, see Esfnond, Book 
ni. Chapter V. Esmond says, " I have always thought of him 
and of Marlborough as the two greatest men of that age." 

CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 

51. 2. — Reform Bill. The Reform Bill was passed in i232. 
"In its final shape the Reform Act absolutely disfranchised forty- 
one boroughs and took away one member from thirty others. 
Thereby, and by its alteration of the franchise, it accomplished a 
great transference of power, in favour of the middle classes in the 
towns. Though it did not establish a democracy, it took a long 
step in that direction." {GdiTdinQv's Student's History of Eng- 
land , p. 905.) 



i 



NOTES. 305 



51. 15. — Pitt. William Pitt the Younger, a great parliamen- 
tary orator and statesman (1759 -1806). 

51. 15. — Mirabeau. Honore Gabriel Riquetti, Count ; born 
1749, died 1791. A great orator of the French Revolution. 

51. 21. — Old Saruin. This place returned two members to 
Parliament. It was "only a green mound, without a habitation 
upon it." {Gardiner.') 

52. 10. — Prince Eugene. Francois Eugene de Savoie (1663- 
1736), A great general, and ally with Marlborough against Louis 
in the battle of Blenheim in 1704. He was originally offended 
because Louis refused to give him a commission in the army ; 
later Louis offered to make him a marshal, but he declined. 

52. 16. — Busby. Richard Busby (1606-1695), tl^e famous 
head-master of Westminster school. A very large number of his 
pupils reached places of distinction. Thackeray's pun is on the 
rod of Aaron, which budded and bore almonds. See the book of 
Numbers, xvii. 8. 

52. 19. — Tickell. Thomas Tickell, the poet, was born at 
Bridekirk, Cumberland, in 1686, and died at Bath, in 1740. He 
was a fellow of Oxford and a contributor to the Spectator. 

52. 19. — John Dennis. A dramatic scribbler and satirist. He 
figured in many literary squabbles. Pope put him in the Dunciad. 
He was born in London in 1657, and died 1734. 

23. 12. — '■'■ Accoiirez^'' ^tz. " Hasten hither, chaste nymphs of 
Permessus ! Sounds spring from my lyre, and the trees are re- 
joiced. Mark well their rise and fall : and you, winds, be still ! 
I shall speak of Louis ! " 

53. 13. — Boileati. Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux (1636-1711). 
A famous man of letters, who exercised an enormous influence 
on French literature, and powerfully affected English literature 
during the age of Anne. His L Art Poetique (1674) was his most 
influential work. 

^3, 34. — "In England literature is more honoured than here." 

54. lO. — Poets' -corner. Did this suggest to Lowell his phrase 
for similar volumes, "the cemetery of the British poets " ? 

^4, 17. — Charles Montague (1661-1715). He wrote verses and 
satirised poets and artists. He was made First Lord of the 
Treasury in 1698. 



3^6 NOTES. 

55- T-—L' hetireitx temps. "O the happy time when these 
fables were ! " 

57. 12. — Wiirs. The well-known coffee-house where Dryden 
ruled literary London. See also note to 180, 28. 

58. 5. — The beautiful Br acegirdle. Anne Bracegirdle (1663 ?- 
1748), a famous actress. In 1693 she made her appearance in 
Congreve's Old Bachelor, and from that time her chief suc- 
cesses were attained in his plays. His personal relations with her 
were the talk of the town, but her high reputation for virtue has 
never been successfully assailed, though she had enemies in her 
own time and unfavourable critics since. She was equally notable 
for her beauty and for her great benevolence. ''Some young 
gentlemen of the town, with whom Esmond had made acquaint- 
ance, had promised to present him to that most charming of 
actresses, and lively and agreeable of women, Mrs. Bracegirdle, 
about whom Harry's old adversary Mohun had drawn swords, a 
few years before my poor Lord and he fell out. The famous Mr. 
Congreve had stamped with his high approval, to the which there 
was no gainsaying, this delightful person : and she was acting in 
Dick Steele's comedies and finally, and for twenty -four hours after 
beholding her, Mr. Esmond felt himself, or thought himself, to be 
as violently enamoured of this lovely brunette, as were a thousand 
other young fellows about the city. To have once seen her was 
to long to behold her again."— Thackeray's Esmond, Book 11, 
Chapter V. 

59. \.— Comic Muse. The English Comic Drama of the Restora- 
tion, from i66o to 1700, is famous for its brilliant dialogue, and 
for its audacious immorality — being in the latter respect worse 
than England has had to endure either before or since the time of 
Charles IL 

59. 5. — Nell Gwynn. Eleanor Gwyn was born in abject 
poverty about 1650 ; though the exact year of her birth is not 
definitely known. She originally frequented the theatres as an 
orange-girl. When fifteen years old she went on the stage, and 
made a decided hit in song and dance. Later she took leading 
parts. Pepys admired her greatly; "pretty witty Nell," he 
writes under date of April 3, 1665. On January 23, 1667, he 
writes, "Knipp took us all in, and brought to us Nelly, a most 



NOTES, 307 

pretty woman, who acted the great part of Coelia to-day very fine, 
and did it pretty well: I kissed her, and so did my wife ; and a 
mighty pretty soul she is." She became the mistress of Lord 
Buckhurst, and in 1669 the mistress of Charles 11. In 1671 she 
was made a lady of the privy chamber to Queen Catharine, where 
her beauty, wit, imperturbable good-nature, and generosity made 
her popular. She assisted her old friends among the poor actors 
and actresses. She bore two sons to the king : the surviving one 
was made Duke of St. Albans. In 1687 she died. Her funeral 
sermon was preached by Dr. Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of 
Canterbury. The best memoir of her is by Peter Cunningham 
(1850). In spite of her well-known character, she had hosts of 
friends during her life, and not a few panegyrists since. Anthony 
Hope's novel, Simon Dale, gives a good account of her life, 
character, and of the times in which she lived. 

59 ^'—Jeremy Collier (1650-1726). His Short View of the 
It?wiorality and Frofaneness of the English Stage (1698) had an 
immense influence in the direction of the long-needed moral 
reform ; though unfortunately the drama that followed in Queen 
Anne's time was as flat as it was harmless. 

60. 7. — Lais. A celebrated Greek courtesan, born at Corinth 
about 180 B.C. She was both greedy and beautiful. She placed 
her favours at such a figure that this proverb became current : 
" Not everybody can go to Corinth." The satirists chided her 
with taking to drink in her old age. There was another person 
of the same name and occupation born at Sicily. 

61. ^.—Cicerone. Italian from "Cicero," so called because of 
the officious talkativeness of the ordinary guide. 

61. 21.— Cavalier seuL " Gentleman forward. " 

62. 2T,.—Poet bids his mistress. The allusion is to Herrick's 
famous lyric, beginning — 

" Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 
Old time is still a-flying.'" 

62. 25. — Treillage. Arbour. 
62. 10.— Pas. Step. 

62. ^2.—Chdlet. A little Swiss house in the gingerbread style, 
like a cuckoo clock. 



308 NOTES, 

63. 25. — Segreto, ^iz. " How to be happy." 

52. 26. — Falei'uian. The most celebrated wine of the ancient 
Romans. There were three varieties — light, sweet, and dry. It 
was something like sherry. 

64. 10. — Mirabel or BeJ'moit}'. Mirabell is a character in The 
Way of the World, and Bellmour figures in the Old Bachelor. 

(^A 12. — Scapm and Frontin. Scapin is a rascally valet in 
Moliere's comedy, Les Fourlieries de Scapin. Frontin is a person- 
age of the old comedy; a bold valet, a saucy, witty intriguer, as 
his name indicates, meaning ''cheeky." He gets control of his 
master, whom he is good enough to protect in the pranks where 
effrontery is the trump-card. 

64. 14. — Chivalry story. For a good account of this species 
of the English novel, see Professor Cross's excellent book, The 
Development of the English Novel, Chapter I. 

65. 2. — Millamant. Mrs. Millamant appears in The Way of 
the World. 

69. 5. — Richelieu at eighty. Richelieu was born in 1585, and 
died in 1642, but Thackeray is merely using a strong figure. 

69. 9. — Grammonf s French dandies. Philibert, Count de 
Grammont (1621-1707). He served in the French armies, and 
was famous for his intrigues. His Memoires (1713) were published 
by his brother-in-law. He took part in the siege of Lerida in 
1647. Lerida is the capital of the province of Lerida, Spain, and 
is the key of Aragon and Catalonia ; hence a strategic point in 
military manoeuvres. Grammont, or Gramont, as the French 
spell the name, dictated his famous Memoires at the age of eighty. 
} 72. 34. — Celui, etc. "Of all the English the man who has 
carried the glory of the comic drama furthest is the late Mr. Con- 
greve. He wrote only a few pieces, but they are all excellent 
specimens of their class. . . . You see everywhere the language of 
honest men who act like scoundrels ; which proves that he thor- 
oughly understood the people with whom he lived, and that he 
moved in what is called good society." 

74- 32. — Shadwell. Thomas Shadwell (1642 7-92), the poet- 
laureate, and dramatist contemporary with Dryden. He is 
scarcely read at all to-day, and is remembered only because Dryden 
attacked him so wittily in MacFlecknoe, and in Absalom and 



NOTES, 309 

Achitophel. In the latter poem Shadwell appears under the name 
of "Og," and is unmercifully belaboured. 

74. 32. — Higgons. Bevil Higgons (1670-1735), a verse-writer 
and historian who is all but forgotten to-day. He prefixed some 
lines to Congreve's Old Bachelor, pointing to Congreve as the 
rightful heir to Dryden's position. He also wrote one or two 
plays himself. 

74- Zl- — Love each other better. Thackeray's quarrel with 
Dickens began in 1858. 

75. II. — Lonely ones of the zuorld. Hardly a felicitous criticism 
to apply to the author of the Spectator ; nor should he be classed 
among the ''lords of intellect." 

76. 17. — Goethe. On April 28, 1855, Thackeray wrote a letter 
to G. H. Lewes, describing a personal interview he had enjoyed 
as a young man with the great Goethe, and how he " went away 
charmed from the great king's audience." See the " Biographical 
edition of Thackeray, " XIII. 640. 

77. I. — The ingenious Mr. Pinkethman. In the Spectator oi 
May 5, 1712, No. 370, we read: "The Petulancy of a peevish 
old Fellow, who loves and hates he knows not why, is very excel, 
lently performed by the Ingenious Mr. William Penkethman in the 
Fop' s Fortune ; where, in the Character of D071 Cholerick Snap 
Shorto de Testy, he answers no Questions but to those whom he 
likes, and wants no account of anything from those he approves. 
... If it be, as I have heard it sometimes mentioned, a great 
Qualification for the World to follow Business and Pleasure too, 
what is it in the Ingenious Mr. Penkethman to represent a Sense 
of Pleasure and Pain at the same time ; as you may see him do 
this Evening?" {Spectator, H. Morley's edition, II. 595.) This 
number of the Spectator was, however, written by Steele. 

77. 3. — Mr. Doggett, the actor. The comic actor, Thomas 
Doggett, is several times alluded to in the Spectator ; he was an 
actor, playwright, and manager, but gained his chief reputation 
on the stage. His especial part was " Hob" in his own solitary 
play, The Country Wake. He died in 1 72 1. 

77, 4. — Don Salter o. This is merely a name for a mounte- 
bank, but here Addison may be alluding to Don Saltero's coffee- 
house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. 



3IO NOTES. 

y8. 5. — The Charterhouse. One of the most famous schools in 
England. Men so different as John Wesley and the historian Grote 
have been numbered among its pupils, as well as Thackeray him- 
self. 

yg, g. — " The Pigmies and the Cranes" See note to page 33. 
The Pygmies were a nation of dwarfs, who, according to Greek 
and Roman mythology, dwelt on the banks of the Upper Nile. 
They were attacked and defeated every spring by the Cranes. 
Addison's own title of his poem is, '^ nTTMAlOTEFANO- 
MAXIA, sive, Prselium (so in Tickell's edition) inter Pygmaeos & 
Grues commissum." 

yg. 14. — Ly(€us. A Greek adjective applied to Bacchus. 

79" 25. — Congees. Formal leave-takings, 

83. 2. — Statins. Publius Papinius Statius was born about 45 
A.D. and died about 96. His most famous work was Thebaidos 
Libri XII. The first book was translated by Pope. 

83. 9. — Blenheim. For the great Duke and his victories, see 
Esmond, where his military campaigns are most graphically de- 
scribed. 

83. 10. — Mr. Boyle. Henry Boyle, Lord Carleton, died in 

1725- 

83. 12, — Lord Treasurer Godolphin. Sidney Godolphin, first 
Earl of Godolphin (1645-1712). "Few statesmen in so conspicu- 
ous a position have left so feeble a personal impression upon 
politics." {^Dict. Nat. Biog.) 

84. II. — Commissioner of Appeals. Thackeray also describes 
this episode in Esmond, Book II, Chapter XI. The student should 
certainly read in connection with the lecture on Addison, this 
chapter in Esmond, called "The Famous Mr. Joseph Addison." 

88. 15. — Jeffreys. George Jeffreys, First Baron Jeffreys (1648 
-89). He was made Lord Chief Justice of England in 1683. His 
pitiless brutality on the bench in condemning prisoners to execu- 
tion has made his name a synonym for cruelty. Personally he 
was scurrilous, violent, dissipated, and time-serving. 

90. 1. — Frisciatis head. A celebrated Latin grammarian, who 
flourished about 500 A.D. 

92. 12. — ^^ Grecian." A famous coffee-house of Queen Anne's 
time. The "Devil" Tavern was not far from the "Mitre." 



I 



NOTES. 311 

94. 6. — A propos de hottes. Literally "casks " (of wine). Any- 
thing irrelevant. 

94. 8. — Doll Tear sheet. A character in Shakspere's King 
Henry IV, Part II. 

95. 21. — Soon as the evening shades prez'ail. These sixteen lines 
form the second and third stanzas of a poem by Addison, that 
appeared in the Spectator for August 23, 1712 (No. 465). The 
last line should be in quotation-marks, and in H. Morley's edition 
of the Spectator, the 31st line of our text reads, "What tho' 
nor real voice nor sound." The two stanzas should of course be 
separated, and not printed as they are in our text, w^hich follows 
the Biographical Edition, which in turn shows some differences in 
this quotation from the first edition of the Humourists. The poem 
begins with the well-known words, "The spacious firmament on 
high." 

96. 17. — Note the fine literary and dramatic contrast between 
the conclusion of the lecture on Addison and of that on Swift. 
It beautifully illustrates Thackeray's conception of the character 
of each man. 

STEELE. 

97. 24. — Swift's History of the times. The History of the Fottr 
Last Years of the Queen was not published till 1758. Swift took 
great pains in its composition, but never printed it. 

98. 5 — Walpole. Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), created 
Earl of Orford in 1742. As Whig Prime Minister, from 172 1 to 
1742, he practically ruled England. He kept his power partly 
by the free use of bribes, but he used it for the best interests of 
the country, devoting all his energies to maintaining peace and 
building up a sound financial system — two of the highest aims of 
statesmanship. 

98. 9. — Copious archdeacon. "The best life of Marlborough 
is still the tii>?some but exhaustive Memoirs by Archdeacon Coxe 
(3 vols., 1818-19)." {Did. Nat. Biog.) William Coxe (1747-1828) 
published a series of memoirs that are careful, industrious, and 
uninspired. 

98. 30. — Tnrpin. Dick Turpin was born in Essex, and was 
originally a butcher. Afterwards he became a noted highway- 



312 NOTES. 

man, and was finally executed for horse-stealing, April lo, 1739. 
He and his steed Black Bess are well described in W. H. Ains- 
worth's Rookwood, and in his Ballads. 

99- 13* — Doctor Smollett. Tobias Smollett, the famous novelist, 
whom Thackeray discusses in a lecture to follow, studied medicine 
and was a surgeon's mate in the navy. 

100. I- — IVill Wivible. A famous character in the Sir Roger de 
Coverley papers in the Spectator. 

100. 21. — Ramillies a7id Malplaqnet. Two battles in Flanders, 
where the French were beaten by the English and Dutch under 
Marlborough. See Book II of Esmond. The battle of Ramillies 
was fought in May 1706, and Malplaquet on September 11, 1709. 

lOi. 18. — Coram latronibus. In the presence of robbers. 

102. 30. — My Lord Mohim. One of the fastest men of his day. 
He is a prominent character in Esmond., where his character is 
fully anatomised. See particularly Book I, chapters XII, XIII, 
and XIV, where Thackeray shows wonderful dramatic power in 
narrative composition. 

106. 23. — Waverley novels appeared. The first of these, 
WaverlPy, came out in 1814. 

106. 25. — The Miss Porters, the Anne of SwanseaSy and worthy 
Mrs. Radcliffe herself. Jane Porter (1776-1850) pviblished her two 
most famous books, Thaddetis of Warsaiv and The Scottish 
Chiefs, in 1803 and 18 10 respectively. 

"Anne of Swansea " was Anne Hatton, sister of Mrs. Siddons ; 
she published eleven novels during the years 1815-31. These 
novels fill fifty-two volumes, showing their vogue in the early part 
of the century; but so totally is their author forgotten to-day, that 
her name does not appear in any of the well-known works of 
reference, and she even enjoys the rare distinction of receiving no 
mention in the Dictionary of National Biography. To escape 
notice in that work is fair proof of oblivion. The title of one of 
her stories is a sample of all — Cesario Rosalba ; or, the Oath of 
Vengeance (5 vols., London, 1819). Thackeray has apparently 
made a slip in speaking of her as one of the predecessors of Scott ; 
she was really one of his followers, both in time and in manner. 

In N'otes and Queries, Fourth Series, VI. 408, November 12, 1870, 
there is the following account of "Anne of Swansea," which, as 



NO TES. 3 1 3 

information about her is now so scarce, is certainly worth quoting 
in full: "Mrs. Hatton, the sister of J. P. Kemble, and Mrs. 
Siddons, resided for many years and died in Swansea. For a 
considerable period of her later life she had been confined to her 
house by an accident which disabled her from the future exercise 
of her profession on the stage, and she received an annuity jointly 
contributed by her brother and sister, Mr. John Kemble and Mrs. 
Siddons. This annuity was at one period withdrawn under the 
following circumstances : Mrs. Hatton wrote a work in three 
volumes entitled Chronicles of Gooselake, in other words, Annals 
of Swansea ; also some brochures, in which several of the leading 
residents of that day, believing themselves, whether justly or not. 
to be the objects of satirical allusion, addressed to Mr. Kemble a 
request that he would use his influence to induce his sister to 
desist from further proceedings of this kind. His letter of ex- 
postulation had the effect of arousing the Kemble blood in this 
high spirited lady, eliciting from her the reply that she would not 
continue to accept the annuity subject to any conditions or inter- 
ference with her free action ; the correspondence resulting, as 
stated before, in the annuity being withdrawn. During its 
suspension Mrs. Hatton was reduced to considerable straits, 
earning an inadequate livelihood from the precarious results of 
authorship. On one occasion, being so occupied while confined 
to her bed by illness, an acquaintance called, and was so affected 
by the scene presented that he at once and unknown to Mrs. 
Hatton represented her case to Mr. Kemble, who, to his honour, 
immediately and unconditionally caused the annuity to be restored. 
For many years she was in the habit of periodically receiving a 
circle of friends, whom she entertained by readings of uncommon 
power and pathos from various dramatic and other works, 
together with an almost endless repertoire of anecdotes, principally 
derived from her own acquaintance and observation of scenes and 
persons eminent and interesting in their day. I was often one of 
her guests on these occasions. The only memento in Swansea of 
this lady that I am aware of is contained in the collection of the 
Swansea Museum — a cast of her head." 

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) wrote romances of mystery, follow- 
ing in the wake of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1764). 



5^14 NOTES. 

Her most famous book, which is still readable, was i\\e Mysteries 
of Udolpho (1794). This style of composition, which once enjoyed 
wide popularity, was cleverly ridiculed by the great realist Jane 
Austen, in Northanger Abbey (1818). For further information 
about Mrs. Radcliffe, see Professor Cross's book, previously men- 
tioned. 

106. 31. — Mrs. Mauley. Mrs. Mary de la Riviere Manley 
(i652?-i724), was a playwright, novelist, and scandal-monger, 
whose own reputation was not far in advance of that of many of 
her characters. Her most famous book was Secret Memoirs and 
Manners of Several Persons of Quality, of both Sexes. Frotn the 
Netv Atalantrs. Seven editions were published. On account of 
the slanders in this book she was arrested. Although Swift had 
attacked her in the Tatler (No. 63), he afterwards became her 
friend, and helped her in some of her compositions. This explains 
Thackeray's expression, "Swift's coadjutrix." Notice that the 
name of the book mentioned above is not "Atlantis," as given in 
the text, but " Atalantis." Perhaps the most commonly misspelled 
name in the language, next to "Jacques " for Shakspere's 
"Jaques," is "Atlanta" for "Atalanta." It seems as though 
"Atalantis" needed only more currency to enjoy the same bad 
eminence. 

107. I. — Tom Durfey. Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723), affec- 
tionately known as "Tom," was a playwright, verse-writer, and 
editor of ballad miscellanies. His best-known production is Pills 
to Purge Melancholy^ six volumes of merry and very licentious 
ballads, published in 1719-20. Though D'Urfey was a good deal 
of a buffoon, and often wrote obscenely, there was in his nature 
something that attracted the very best men to him, for so pure- 
minded a man as Addison spoke of him in terms of the warmest 
affection, and he was a general favourite wherever he went. 

107. I. — Tom Brown. Thomas Brown (1663-1704) was a 
school-teacher, journalist, and hand-to-mouth writer. He was a 
dissipated man, and wrote very coarse satires. His humourous 
sketches of low life are, however, valuable. He was buried in 
the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, near his friend Mrs. Aphra 
Behn. 

107. I. — Ned Ward, Edward Ward, born about 1660, was for 



A 



NOTES. 315 

many years a noted tavern-keeper and poet in London. He died 
in 1 73 1. The London Spy appeared 1698- 1700, and was published 
complete in eighteen parts in 1753. Its chief distinction was its 
coarse humour. 

113, 12. — '■'■Christian Hero.'' This was published in 1701, 
the title reading as follows : " The Christian Hero : an Argument 
proving that no Principles but those of Religion are sufficient to 
?nake a great Man.'' For Steele's career as a soldier, see 
Esmond. 

122. 17. — ^'- Advice to a very Young Alar ried Lady." See our 
note, on this letter, to page 31. Thackeray looks at the matter 
from only one point of view, and that not the right one. 

127. 16. — Jonson. Query-Tonson ? It is Jonson in the first 
edition. 

128. 2. — Artless as a child' s prattle. They are probably more 
amusing to us than they were to the recipient. 

130. 10. — Addison sold the house and furniture. See P.rof. G. 
R. Carpenter's Lntroduction to his edition of Steele (Athenaeum Press 
Series), page 37. This story circulated freely in Dr. Johnson's 
time, and was given added currency by Macaulay ; but it lacks 
proof, and is very likely apocryphal. Steele wrote to his wife 
under date of August 20, 1708: *'I have paid M'' Addison His 
whole thousand pound and have settled every man's payment 
except one which I hope to perfect tomorrow." This letter 
apparently refers to a previous loan ; for a fuller discussion of the 
story of the sale than is found in Carpenter, see Aitken's Life of 
Steele, II, 342-344- 

131. 12. — Doctor John Hoadly. He was the youngest son of the 
well-known Bishop, Benjamin Hoadly, and was born in London 
on October 8, 17 11, and died March 16, 1776. He became a 
clergyman so as to avail himself of the fine livings he could 
obtain through his father's influence. Nor was he disappointed 
in this ; for after a good push by the Bishop, he rose from one 
preferment to another, holding on to all of them till his death. 
His real interest, however, was in the drama ; he wrote several 
plays, and hobnobbed with theatrical people. The passage quoted 
by Thackeray may be found in John Nichols's Epistolary Corre- 
spondence of Sir Richard Steele^ London, 1809, II. 508, note. 



3l6 NOTES. 

where it is given as "extracted from a letter written by Dr. John 
Hoadly." 

131- 19-^ — ^'^^^ 4^^^ November. William was born at The Hague 
on November 4, 1650, and was married to Princess Mary of York 
on November 4, 1677. 

132. 7. — Mr. Joseph Aliller. An actor, commonly called "Joe 
Miller"; bom 1684, died 1738. His reputation really came after 
his death. John Mottley, in 1739, compiled a book called Joe 
Miller's Jests. It was very popular, but not authentic. 

135. 7. — Terrible lines of S^inft. From Swift's short poem 77;^ 
Day of Judgment. In the standard edition of Swift, edited by Scott, 
these lines are given in Volume XIV, page 259, and they differ 
in a number of minor details from the version in Thackeray's text. 
Swift never published them ; they were found among his MSS., 
and appeared in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to Voltaire, dated 
August 27, 1752. 

137. 8. — The first sense of sorrow. Dick Steele himself nar- 
rates this episode, in almost exactly the same words, to Harry 
Esmond. See Esmond, Book I, Chapter VI. 

140. 20. — The Barmecide's. From the Arabian Nights. A 
prince of the Barmecide family set an imaginary meal before a 
hungry man, who pretended to eat. Thus to share in a "Barme- 
cide " meal is like dining with Duke Humphry — one eats only in 
imagination. Dickens uses the expression, " a Barmecide feast." 

143. 25. — Beignets d'abricot. Apricot fritters. — Dii vionde 
means "in good society." 

Although no one could speak more appreciatively or affection- 
ately of Steele than Thackeray does in this lecture, he has 
certainly made him out to be much less respectable than he really 
was. Steele was not nearly so reckless nor so dissipated as 
Thackeray represents him. Perhaps for this very reason, the 
actual Steele was less interesting and picturesque. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 

149. 6. — Spielhatis. Gaming-house. 

149. 6. — Bobbing for perch. The "bob" is the floater. 

149. 10. — Batavian Chloe. When Holland was conquered by 



I 



NOTES. ^1/ 

the French in 1795, a new government was set up, called the 
" Batavian Republic. " 

150. g. — Alcaics. Perhaps the best English verses in this metre 
are Tennyson's lines to Milton, beginning 

" O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, 
O skilTd to sing of Time or Eternity, 
God-gifted organ-voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages/' 

A-lcseus was a lyric poet of Mytilene, who flourished about 600 
B.C. One variety of this classic metre consists of verses of five 
feet, the first a spondee, or sometimes an iambic, the second an 
iambic, the third a long syllable, and the fourth and fifth dactyls. 
It is an exceedingly difficult metre to handle successfully in 
English. 

151. 13. — Mahomet'' s coffin. Mahomet's coffin was supposed to 
be suspended in mid-air without support. Some accounted for 
this by a theory of an iron coffin with magnets ; and there were 
various hypotheses, until one man decided to visit it and see for 
himself; then the mystery was explained : it was n't suspended at 
all. 

152. 4. — Spence. Joseph Spence (1699-1768), His Anecdotes 
were published in 1820, and are at once delightful reading and 
an invaluable source of reference for all students of eighteenth - 
century literature. 

152. II. — Long Acre. A street in the western part of London, 
between Hyde Park and Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was celebrated 
for its coach-makers, and also for its low resorts. See Pepys, ed. 
Wheatley, IV. 41. 

152. II. — Johnson. See note to page 155, line 2. 

153. 5. — Their modern air. Prior's songs have had a consider- 
able influence on the minor verse of our own day. The lighter 
pieces of Frederick Locker, Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and 
others, show plainly the manner of Prior. 

153. 7. — Owner of the Sabine farm. Horace, who owned a 
fine country seat in the Sabine mountains. 

153. 8, 31. — Verses addressed to Halifax. Not only has 
Thackeray ''ingeniously transposed the order of these verses," 



3l8 NOTES. 

but the first stanza does not occur in the original at all, and the 
second is not correctly quoted. In the original it reads, 

" Our Hopes, like tow'ring Falcons, aim 
At Objects in an airy height : 
The little Pleasure of the Game 
Is from afar to view the Flight." 

— To the Honourable Charles Montague. Poems 
on Several Occasions. London, 1718, folio. 

The stanza that Thackeray quotes first is not in this poem, and I 
have not succeeded in finding it anywhere in the poems of Prior. 
In the first edition of the Humourists^ the " w^hilst " in the first 
line reads " w^hen." 

153. 20. — Verses of Chloe. The stanzas quoted are the last 
three of Prior's poem, A Better Answer. Prior spelled "Cloe," 
not '^ Chloe." And it is spelled "Cloe" in the first edition of 
the Humourists. 

153. 32. — In the metre made familiar. Alluding, of course, to 
Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850), then in the first flush of its 
fame. 

154. 14. — '■'■ She sighed, she smiled.^^ These are the last four 
stanzas of Prior's poem, The Garland. 

154. 31. — ^^ Deus sit" etc. "May God be good to this 
drinker." 

155. I. — Walter de Mapes. Map, Mapes, or Mapus, Walter, a 
renowned churchman, politician, and wit of the twelfth century. 
He was of Welsh descent, ''Map" being Welsh for "son." He 
was probably a native of Herefordshire, and during his life was 
largely associated with the city of Hereford, though he wrote in 
French and Latin. He was born about 1140, and as a youth 
went to study at Paris, returning to England before 1 162. He 
was a close friend of Henry II., employed by him at court, and 
given important positions in the Church. He died about 1209. 
"Map" is the correct spelling of his name, for he spells it that 
way himself. We learn most of the facts of his life from his work, 
De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers' Triflings). He has always en- 
joyed a great reputation for his supposed share in the creation of 
the legends of the Round Table ; M. Paulin Paris believes him to 
have been the authpr of the prose Lancelot, including the S. Graal, 



NOTES. 319 

and Morte Arthur. M. Gaston Paris, however, ascribes none of 
it to Map. For a discussion of this question, see Diet. A' at. Biog., 
art. A/ap. He seems to have written a number of satirical poems 
against ecclesiastical abuses, though many were formerly ascribed 
to him which are not now believed to be his. In fact, just what he 
did and did not write are favourite matters of discussion among 
scholars. In Tennyson's play, Becket, Walter Map appears as a 
character who strenuously endeavors to furnish a comic element. 

155. 2. — yo/mson, who spoke slightingly of Prior's verses. 
*'Mrs. Thrale disputed with him on the merit of Prior. Heat- 
tacked him powerfully; said he wrote of love like a man who had 
never felt it ; his love verses were college verses; and he repeated 
the song 'Alexis shunn'd his fellow swains,' &c., in so ludicrous 
a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have 
been pleased with such fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood to 
her gun with great courage, in defence of amourous ditties, which 
Johnson despised, till he at last silenced her by saying, * My dear 
Lady, talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by 
nonsense.'" — Boswell's Johnson, ed. Hill, II. 89. 

158. 4. — Craggs. James Craggs the Younger ( 1686-172 1), 
Secretary of State. He was mixed up in the South Sea Company. 
He died of the smallpox, and his colifin rests on that of his friend 
Addison in Henry VII's chapel. Addison wrote a letter on his 
death-bed, dedicating his works to Craggs. 

163. 4. — Mr. Gay's ^^ Fables." The first series of Gay's Fables 
was published in 1727. The Dedication ran as follows : "To his 
Highness William, Duke of Cumberland, these new Fables, in- 
vented for his amusement, are humbly dedicated by his High- 
ness's most faithful and most obedient servant, John Gay." Wil- 
liam Augustus (1721-1765), the Duke of Cumberland, the third 
son of George II., was of course a mere child when the Fables 
were dedicated to him. 

163. 6. — Dettingen. A Bavarian village on the Main. On 
June 27, 1743, the Austrians, Hanoverians, and English under 
George II. defeated a larger French force there. This was the 
last time that an English king took personal command of an army 
in battle. 

163. 7. — Ctilloden is in Scotland, six miles E.N.E. of Inverness. 



320 NOTES. 

Here the royal army, commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, 
totally defeated the young Pretender, on the i6th of April 1746. 
Cumberland was censured for cruelty in this battle. Thackeray's 
use of the word ''amiable" is characteristic. 

163. 14. — " Shepherd's rveek." Published in 1714. The Tri- 
via appeared in 17 15. 

163. 19. — Minikin. Thackeray apparently uses this word in 
the sense in which Schmidt says it is used in Shakspere. See 
Lear, III. vi, 45 : 

" And for one blast of thy minikin mouth, 
Thy sheep shall take no harm." 

Schmidt defines the word as "small and pretty." It is somewhat 
doubtful, however, if this is an exact definition. The word occurs 
only once in Shakspere; but in Lovelace's poem, Ellindas Glove, 
we find 

" For though the lute's too high for me, 
Yet servants, knowing minikin nor base. 
Are still allow'd to fiddle with the case." 

The minikin was a little pin, for high notes, used only by very 
clever musicians. It would seem that this might explain the 
Shaksperian use of the word better than Schmidt's interpretation. 
163. 24. — Bird-organ. "A small barrel-organ used in teach- 
ing birds to whistle tunes." — Century Dictionary . 

163. 31. — Bergamot. A perfume from a fruit tree. 

164. I. — Philips. Ambrose Philips (1671-1749). He was 
called by his contemporaries "namby-pamby" Philips, which 
distinguished him from the poetaster John Philips, who wrote at 
the same time. His Pastorals^ which Thackeray here has in 
mind, were published in 1709. 

164. 25. — Rubini. Giovanni Battista Rubini, a great Italian 
tenor, was born at Romano, province of Bergamo, in 1795, and 
died near there in 1854. He was therefore still living when 
Thackeray wrote this passage about him. His fame began early 
and was soon enormous. He went to Paris in 1825, where he 
played the part of Romiro in Cenerentola. Later he traveled 
over much of Europe with uniform tremendous success. He be- 
came the master singer of the continent. The harsh climate of 



NOTES. 321 

Russia injured his voice; he resolved to retire, and finally ended 
his days on the magnificent estate which his voice had enabled 
him to buy. 

164. 25. — quil avail, etc. "That he had tears in his voice." 

165. 2. — In the '■'■ Beggar s Opera'" and in its wearisotne con- 
tinuation. J. Underhill, in the introduction to his edition of Gay 
(Muses' Library edition, p. li), remarks, "it may with perfect 
truth be said that it is the first ' popular ' success known to the 
history of the English stage." The "wearisome continuation" 
was the sequel which Gay wrote, called Polly. The satire in this 
was so evident that the authorities prohibited its performance; but 
so great was the interest taken in any continuation of the Beggar's 
Opera, that Polly had an enormous sale. 

168. 17. — The greatest natne on our list. It will be remembered 
that at the conclusion of the lecture on Swift., Thackeray re- 
marked, "We have other great names to mention — none I think, 
however, so great or so gloomy." Lecturers are sometimes care- 
less in the use of adjectives. 

168. 26. — llie greatest literacy artist. In the sense of polish 
and absolute finish, Pope was, no doubt, a great artist; but apart 
from genius and inspiration, and judging only from the standpoint 
of skill in handling verse forms, Milton was a far greater artist 
than Pope. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming that 
the highest genius is necessarily unaccompanied by lack of 
technical skill : Shakspere and Milton- are conspicuous instances 
to the contrary. 

170. 24. — Ariosto. His great poem, the Orlando Furioso, 
which has exercised so profound an influence on the literature of 
the world, was published in 15 16. 

170. 24. — Battling with the Cidfor the love of Chi?7iene. The 
Cid was and is a Spanish hero. The original Cid was one Ruy 
(Rodrigo) Diaz de Bivar, a great baron. He was born about 
1040, and died in 1099 at Valencia, which he rescued from the 
Moors. Five Moorish kings are said to have named him "Cid" 
(derived from the Arabic Sid-y) for being their lord and conqueror. 

He became the chief figure of Spanish ballad literature : and 
was made the leading character of two plays by Guillem de 
Castro, a Spanish poet (1569-1631). From these plays Corneille, 



322 NOTES. 

the famous French dramatist, obtained his inspiration and much 
of his material for Le Cid, a tragi-comedy that appeared in 1636. 
The substance of the plot of this play is as follows : Don Gomes, 
stung to jealousy because Don Diegue has been made tutor of the 
king's son (the Infant) provokes Don Diegue to great anger ; a 
quarrel ensues, and Gomes smites the feeble Don Diegue. Unable 
to avenge his injury, the old man appeals to his son, Don Rodri- 
gue, who challenges and slays Don Gomes. Now Don Rodrigue 
is in love with Chimene, the daughter of Don Gomes, who, 
despite her tender passion for the young warrior, demands 
vengeance of Ferdinand the king for her father's death. The 
whole play turns upon the struggle between her loyalty to her 
slain father and her love for the man who has slain him. Her 
anguish is great, but she is after all a woman. She offers a 
condition to Don Rodrigue, which he fulfills by winning great 
victories. Even then Chimene does not immediately yield : the 
Cid again departs in pursuit of glory, after which he may return 
and possess her. 

170. 26. — Armida s gardeu- Armida is one of the most 
prominent characters in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Her story 
is founded on a tradition related by Pierre Delancre. "The 
poet tells us, that, when the Crusaders arrived at the Holy City, 
Satan held a council to devise some means of disturbing the plans 
of the Christian warriors, and Armida, a very beautiful sorceress, 
was employed to seduce Rinaldo and other crusaders. Rinaldo 
was conducted by Armida to a remote island, where, in her 
splendid palace, surrounded by delightful gardens and pleasure- 
grounds, he utterly forgot his vows and the great object to which 
he had devoted his life. To liberate him from his voluptuous 
bondage, two messengers from the Christian army. Carlo and 
Ubaldo, came to the island, bringing a talisman so powerful that 
the witchery of Armida was destroyed. Rinaldo escaped [not a 
very accurate expression] , but was followed by the sorceress, who, 
in battle, incited several warriors to attack the hero, and at last 
herself rushed into the fight. She was defeated by Rinaldo 
[because after all she was only a weak woman] , who then con- 
fessed his love to her, persuaded her to become a Christian, and 



NOTES. 32 S 

vowed to be her faithful knight. The story of Armida has been 
made the subject of an opera by both Gluck and Rossini." 

" 'Twas but a doubt; but ne'er magician's wand 
Wrought change with all Armtda''s fairy art 
Like what this light touch left on Juan's heart." 

— Byron. 
"The stage (even as it then was), after the recluseness and 
austerity of a college life, must have appeared like Armida s 
enchanted palace." — Hazlitt. 

"The grand mansions you arrive at in this waste, howling 
solitude prove sometimes essentially robber-towers; and there 
may be Armida palaces and divine-looking Armidas, where your 
ultimate fate is still worse." — Carlyle. 

The above quotation with the illustrations is taken from 
Wheeler's Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction. The Geru- 
salemme Liberata of Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) appeared in 
1581. 

172. 10. — A deitx fins. With two endings. Rechauffe va&d,ii% 
" warmed up." 

173. 2. — Appret/. "Cooked up." 

177. 3. — Cachet. Literally "seal." An air of distinction, 

179. I. — More illustrious. Possibly the Mermaid Tavern, a 
century earlier, with Shakspere and Jonson and the other dra- 
matists, might compare favorably with this. 

179. 5. — White's. In the first number of the Tatler, April 12, 
1709, Steele says, "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and enter- 
tainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house." 
This famous resort stood in St. James's Street, and in the early 
days of the eighteenth century it had a v.dde reputation as a 
gambling place for men of fashion. Note Hogarth's Rake's 
Progress, Part iv. 

179. 6. — The ^^ Patriot A'ing.'' This was written by Boling- 
broke in December, 1738, in a highly rhetorical style. Chester- 
field said that until he read this piece he did not know "the 
extent and power of the English language." {IVorhs, 1845, i. 
376), quoted in Diet. Nat. Biog., art. St. John. Without the 
author's consent, and against' his will. Pope, who did so many 
underhand and disgraceful things, secretly printed 1500 copies of 



I- 



324 NOTES. 

The Patriot King. In 1844, very soon after Pope's death, which 
occurred that year, Bolingbroke discovered that Pope had done 
this : he was very indignant, and had a correct edition published 
that contained a preface said to be by David Mallet, which 
attacked Pope. This brought on a fierce literary controversy. 
These facts form an interesting comment on Thackeray's state- 
ment (p. 178), "I know nothing in any story more gallant and 
cheering than the love and friendship which this company of 
famous men bore towards one another." Furthermore, while 
"a pretty fellow from White's" doubtless "could not have 
written" The Patriot King, it is altogether probable that he 
would not have published it in so underhand a manner, ''and 
would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope " for doing it. 

179. 10. — Have 7uon Barcelona. Barcelona was taken by the 
Earl of Peterborough in the autumn of 1705. The circumstances 
under which the town was assailed, and by which Peterborough 
got the sole credit for the victory, form an interesting chapter in 
military annals. For a good account, see Diet. Nat. Biog. art. 
Charles Mordaunt. 

180. 28. — " Wiifs." In the Tatler Steele dated his accounts 
of poetry from this coffee-house. Pepys visited the famous resort 
for the first time on February 3, 1664. ' ' In Covent Garden to-night, 
going to fetch home my wife, I stopped at the great Coffee-house 
there, where I never was before; where Dry den the poet (I knew 
at Cambridge), and all the wits of the town, and Harris the 
player, and Mr. Hoole of our College. And had I had time then, 
or could at other times, it will be good coming thither, for there, 
I perceive, is very witty and pleasant discourse. But I could nox. 
tarry, and as it was late, they were all ready to go away." Diary 
ed. Wheatley, IV. 30. This tavern was originally called the 
"Rose," but the name was changed to "Will's" after William 
Urwin, the landlord. 

181. 15- — Budgell. Eustace Budgell (1686-1737), was one of 
the contributors to the Spectator^ and shared Addison's lodgings 
for a time. 

181. 15. — Carey. Henry Carey, a poet and musician. Pope 
said he was one of Addison's "little senate." His best-known 
poem is Sally in our Alley. He was said to have been an ille- 



NOTES. 325 

gitimate son of the Marquis of Halifax. Hawkins says he killed 
himself. His death occurred in 1743. 

181. 17- — Duroc. Gerard Christophe Michel Duroc, Duke of 
Friuli (1772-1813). A favourite officer of Napoleon. 

181. 17- — Hardy. Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, Vice Ad- 
miral (1769-1839). He entered the navy in 1781, and \vas con- 
spicuous for gallantry in action. He was captain of the ' ' Victory " 
at the great battle of Trafalgar (1805), and attended Nelson in his 
dying hours. 

181. 23. — Spadille and Manille. Spadille is the ace of spades 
in the Spanish game called Iwnibre, or, as the English Augustans 
spelled it, "ombre." The leading features of this game are well 
brought out in Pope's Rape of the Lock. Manille is also a term 
in "ombre," "quadrille," and "tri." In black it is the deuce, 
and in red the seven of the colour on which one is playing. 
There is another game of cards in which the nine of diamonds 
(which is called "manille") takes the value chosen by him who 
has the nine spot. "Quadrille" refers to the fact that four 
persons are playing ombre: "tri" to the fact that three are 
playing. 

183. !• — Thai doting old wit. We know now that Pope's 
account of how he assisted Wycherley is false : the correspondence 
that was published as having passed between them was doctored 
by Pope, making it practically a forgery. By the way, one of 
Pope's most famous phrases — "damn with faint praise" (given 
on page 186 of our text) — was stolen from Wycherley. In the 
prologue to Wycherley's play. The Plain Dealer (1677), we find 
the line, "And with faint praises one another damn." 

183. 7- — Addisoji's triumph of " Cato." For a good account of 
the success of this play, and the causes of it, see Mr. Thomas 
Sergeant Perry's admirable work, English Literature in the 
Eighteenth Century, chapter v. 

184. 14. — The best satire. Thackeray quotes it on page 186. 

185. 3. — Bernadotte. His original name was Jean Baptiste 
Jules Bernadotte. He was born in 1764, and died in 1844. He 
ruled as Charles XIV of Sweden. Napoleon made him a marshal 
of France in 1804, but he afterwards quarreled with his master 
because the latter censured his conduct at the battle of Wagram 



326 NOTES. 

(1809). In 1810 the Swedish Diet elected Bernadotte heir to the 
throne, as old Charles XIII had no son. His reign began in 
1818, though he had exercised great power long before. 

185. 18. — Did Mr. Addison^ etc. For a full account of the 
quarrel between Addison and Pope, see the Diet. A^at. Biog. 

186. 17. — ^' And zvere there one^'" etc. These lines are taken 
from Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbtitknot, and are perhaps from the' 
purely artistic point of view the most skilful work Pope ever did, 
and must rank among the masterpieces of English satire. Curi- 
ously enough, while Pope intended in this passage to draw a 
picture of Addison, he not only totally failed to do that, but uncon- 
sciously drew the best portrait of himself that the world has ever 
seen. Curses and chickens are not the only things that come 
home to roost. Nearly all the leading features of Pope's character 
are most accurately set forth in this attack upon Addison. 

The punctuation of this famous passage as given in the Bio- 
graphical Edition of Thackeray's English Humourists, page 546, 
is very bad, though it differs in a few details from the first edition. 
There are two errors also, which occur in the first edition and are 
copied in the Biographical: the " and " in line 17 should be "but," 
and the "as" in line 29 should be "or." Pope also wrote 
"ev'n" for "even " in line 31. Our text follows the Biographical 
except in obvious typographical errors; I have therefore printed 
this passage exactly as it appears there; but any reader can easily 
make the necessary improvement in punctuation, 

188. 13. — Thomson. James Thomson, familiarly called 
"Jemmy," the well-known poet, and author of the Seasons (i'j26- 
1730). He was born in 1700, and died in 1748. His dissipated 
habits were a matter of common gossip. 

189. 8. — Atterbury. Francis Atterbury, the famous bishop 
(1662-1732). His correspondence is interesting. He is one of 
the characters in Esmond, and hears Lord Castlewood's dying 
confession. See Esmond, Book I, chapter xiv. 

189. 20. — With the exception of Swift. Why except Swift ? Up 
to the time of his leaving London, he was certainly one of the orna- 
ments of polished society, and few men were more sought after 
than he. 

J89. 22. — Garth. Sir Samuel Garth was born in 1661, and 



NO TES. 327 

died on January 18, 1719, not 1718, as the foot-note in the text 
gives it. His poem, the Dispensary , appeared in 1699, and by 
1741 had reached its tenth edition. It ridiculed the apothecaries. 

190. I. — Steele has described. Steele dedicated his periodical, 
The Lover, to Garth in the most affectionate language, saying 
that he did not know whether his love or admiration for Garth 
was the greater, and the dedication began as follows : "As soon 
as I thought of making the Lover a Present to one of my Friends, 
I resolved, without further distracting my Choice, to send it To 
the Best-natiired Man. You are so universally known for this 
Character, that an Epistle so directed would find its Way to You 
without your Name, and I believe no Body but You yourself 
would deliver such a Superscription to any other Person." 

190. 2. — Codrington. Christopher Codrington (1668-1710), is 
identified with All Souls' College, Oxford, to which he left an 
endowment that founded and maintained a splendid library. He 
was a prominent general under King William. His allusion to 
Garth, quoted in the text, is taken from lines that Tie sent to Garth 
about the Dispensary, which include the following : 

" Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy, 
Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I." 

190. 3. — The best of Christians. In Pope's Farewell to London 
(1715) we find 

" Farewell, Arbuthnot's raillery 
On every learned sot; 
And Garth, the best good Christian he, 
Although he knows it not."— (Stanza 4.) 

191. 10. — Jervas. Charles Jervas or Jarvis (1675 7-1739), was 
born in Ireland. He lived with Sir Godfrey Kneller for a year, 
and was a famous portrait painter. He was especially fond of 
the society of literary men. Although he does not seem to have 
known much Spanish, he made a translation of Don Quixote, the 
chief interest of which lies in the discussion it caused as to how 
much Spanish its maker really knew, a question that has never 
been settled to the complete satisfaction of everyone. Jervas, like 
so many other persons mentioned in the ILuinourists, figures in 
Esmond. "She must have his picture taken; and accordingly 
he was painted by Mr. Jervas, in his red coat, and smiling upon 



328 NOTES, 

a bombshell, which was bursting at the corner of the piece." 
Esmond^ Book II, chapter xv. 

191. II. — Richardson. Jonathan Richardson (1665-1745), a 
painter who made honest and trustworthy likenesses, but whose 
work shows no genius. He was an intimate friend of Pope. 

192, 4. — Kneller. Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose original name 
was Gottfried Kniller, was born at Ltibeck in North Ger- 
many in 1646. About 1675 he went to London, and painted 
portraits for Charles II and others. King Louis XIV also sat 
for him. He was the principal court painter for William III, 
one of his most famous pictures being the equestrian portrait of 
William, now at Hampton Court. He painted Queen Anne, 
George I and his son, and in 17 15 was made a baronet. He 
did an enormous amount of work, and amassed great wealth. 
Ten reigning sovereigns sat to him, which makes his prodigious 
vanity somewhat excusable. He died in 1723. 

194. 22. — His faithful dog. 

" But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

— Essay on Man, i. in, 112. 

ind, 3. — The famous Greek picture. This refers to the cele- 
brated painting of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, by Timanthes, a 
Greek painter who flourished about 400 B.C. We know nothing 
of his life, but Pliny said that he possessed the art of expressing 
human passion more than any other artist. He suggests more 
than he shows. In the picture alluded to, the grief of Calchas, 
Ulysses, and Menelaus is shown in their faces. Agamemnon 
has his face covered. 

197. 22. — Gibber's pamphlets. Colley Cibber (1671-1757), one 
of the most notable if not notorious figures connected with litera- 
ture and the stage in the eighteenth century. He was a play- 
wright, an actor, a vigorous controversial writer, and a rake. In 
1730 he was appointed poet-laureate. In the quarrel that took 
place between him and Pope, posterity has decided that justice is 
on the side of Cibber, though unfortunately he was no match for 
Pope in a wit combat. Pope finally made him the hero of the 
Dunciad in place of Theobald. Cibber had a hand in the compo- 
sition of some thirty plays; he was an excellent comedy actor, one 



>ne I 



NOTES. 329 

of the best theatrical managers the English stage has known, and 
must rank in the very first class as a dramatic critic. His Apol- 
ogy for the Life of Air. Colley Cibber (1740), an important and 
valuable book, is written with great skill, and is essential to those 
who would understand tlie history of the stage in the eighteenth 
century. In spite of Gibber's many strong and (some) great 
qualities, he was often regarded by his contemporaries, especially 
by his enemies, as a mere fool. He had weaknesses and affectations. 

198. 15. — Tibbald. Lewis Theobald (pronounced and some- 
times spelled Tibbald), was born in 1688, and died in 1744, the 
same years as his bitter antagonist, Pope. He was slow, rather 
pedantic, and as a poet dull and worthless. But it was not for 
his bad, but for his good qualities, that Pope hated him. In 1725 
Pope published an edition of Shakspere, a work for which he was 
by no means fitted. Theobald shortly pointed out many errors in 
this edition, at the same time making most valuable comments and 
wonderfully felicitous emendations of the text. Many of these 
Pope adopted in his second edition, with unblushing falsehoods 
about the amount of his debt. Then he proceeded to make poor 
Theobald the hero of the Dunciad, thus holding him up to the 
ridicule of the whole town, which did not spare him. Theobald 
was no match for Pope in controversy, but he answered him in a 
much more effectual way by bringing out in 1734 his own edition 
of Shakspere, which in scholarship and value completely eclipsed 
Pope's. In the long list of Shaksperean editors and commentators 
Theobald's is to-day one of the most honored names. His famous 
emendation of the folio reading, '*a Table of green fields'. 
(Henry V, II, iii. 17) by "a' babbled of green fields" is a stroke 
of genius, and whether Shakspere wrote it or not, it is certainly 
worthy of the great dramatist at his best. * ' In the union of 
learning, critical acumen, tact, and good sense he has perhaps 
no equal among Shakespearean commentators." — Churton Collins, 
Bid. Nat. Biog., art. Theobald. 

198. 16. — Welsted. Leonard Welsted ( 1 689-1 747) also figured 
in the Dunciad. 

^ " Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, beer; 

Though stale, not ripe; though thin, yet never clear ; 



330 NOTES. 

So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull; 
Heady, not strong; overflowing, though not full." 

—(Book III. vs. 170.) 

Pope is, of course, parodying the well-known lines in Cooper's 
Hill by the poet Denham. Welsted had incurred the enmity of 
Pope by satirising the play Three Hours after Marriage^ written 
by Gay, Arbuthnot, and Pope. 

198. 18. — Grub Street. This was near Moor Fields. It was 
well known in Pope's day as the headquarters of poor literary 
hacks. The name was used as an uncomplimentary epithet, 
however, by the enemies of Foxe, the writer on martyrs, who 
lived there in the early days of Elizabeth. Hare calls attention 
to the curious fact that the present name of this thoroughfare, 
•'Milton Street," was named after a builder, and not after the 
great poet, though the place is "full of memories of him." In 
the Dicnciady we find 

" Not with less glory mighty Dulness crown'd, 
Shall take through Grub Street her triumphant round." 

—(Book III., vs. 135, 6.) 

198. 31. — Curie s authors. Edmund Curll (1675-1747), an ener- 
getic, clever, and utterly unscrupulous book-seller and publisher. 
He quarrelled with Pope for twenty years. For Pope's transactions 
with him, which form one of the dirtiest chapters in the history 
of letters, and now that the truth is known, have completely ruined 
Pope's reputation for personal honor, see the Elwin-Courthope 
edition of Pope's works, where the whole business is given in 
detail. Curll was unmercifully ridiculed in the Dunciad. 

199. I. — Petty France. This was a street which took its name 
from the number of French Protestants that came for refuge 
thither in 1635. It was afterward called York Street, from the 
Duke of York, the son of George III. Milton's house, where he 
lived with Andrew Marvell as private secretary, stood on this 
street. It was destroyed in 1877, and according to Hare *• with- 
out a voice being raised to save it." — Walks in London^ II. 402. 

199. 2. — Budge Roiv. This was in the very heart of London, 
near Watling Street. It was " so called from the sellers of Budge 
(lamb-skin) fur." — (Hare, I. 328.) 



NOTES. 331 

200. 17. — She comes, she conies! Four lines are omitted in 
this quotation. After line 32, "Shrinks to her second cause and 
is no more," there should appear 

" Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, 
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense ! 
See Mystery to Mathematics fly ! 
In vain ! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die." 

These four lines are also omitted in the first edition of the 
Humourists. The Biographical edition corrects one error in the 
first edition, which read "Faith " for "Truth " in line 29. But 
both editions have the false reading "fell" in line 27, v^^here the 
Diinciad reads "felt." Our text, of course, follows the Bio- 
graphical edition. 

201. 9. — The equal of all poets of all times. This is of course 
mere hyperbole. 

201. 28. — Pope' s admirable career. Had Thackeray known as 
much about this career as we do to-day, he would doubtless have 
revised this statement. In fact, all of this glowing peroration 
would be excellent, if we could only take it ironically. As a sober 
estimate, it fits Pope about as well as it would Judas Iscariot. 

HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 

203. 4. — A virtuous and gallant hero. Compare this and what 
follows with the title of Thackeray's great novel, "Vanity Fair: 
a Novel without a Hero,'' which certainly was and is " a greatly 
popular story." 

203. 15. — I fa7icy very few ladies. Just what 'books women, 
or "ladies " as they were called in 1850, do and do not like would 
be a difficult matter to settle, to explain, or to analyse. Thacke- 
ray is probably right in suggesting that Swift and Fielding are 
not favourite writers with women. Mrs. Oliphant, in confessing 
her inability to agree with Carlyle's high estimate of Burns's 
yolly Beggars, says that perhaps it is impossible for a refined 
woman to appreciate properly productions, no matter how power- 
ful, that contain passages so coarse. Yet to-day we see thousands 
of women go into ecstasies over the stories of Rudyard Kipling, 
while conversely it is not improbable that the delicate art of Jane 



332 NOTES. 

Austen finds more admirers among men than among women. 
Thomas Hardy has many bitter enemies among his feminine 
readers ; one of them wrote on the margin of one of his novels 
that belonged to a circulating library, "Oh, how I hate Thomas 
Hardy ! " One thing, at any rate, is certain. Women form the 
chief constituency of the modern successful novelist. They are as 
necessary to the success of the novel as they are to foreign missions. 

206. 2. — Jack Sheppard. John Sheppard, the criminal, was 
born in 1702. His mistress, who led him astray, incited him to 
most of his crimes. He astonished England with his wonderful 
escapes from prison ; and his final execution in 1724 was wit- 
nessed by 200,000 people. Defoe's interesting novel. Colonel 
yacque, gives a good account of a career of robbery similar to 
that of Jack Sheppard. 

206. 3. — Jonathati Wild. See Fielding's famous novel of 
that name, which deals with a historical personage. Wild was a 
detective, who brought 35 highway robbers, 22 house-breakers, 
and 10 returned convicts to the gallows. He was born in 1682, 
and was himself executed for house-breaking in 1725. 

206. 12. — Draco. Draco, or Dracon, was an Athenian legis- 
lator, who ruled as Archon in 621 B.C. He is commonly said to 
have made death a penalty for every offense, no matter how triv- 
ial, but his cruelty is doubtless exaggerated by tradition. 

206. 29. — Sconces. Elaborate fixed candlesticks. 

206. 31. — Baldaquin. Usually spelled "baldachin." An 
ornamental canopy generally placed over an altar. 

" For see, for see, the rapturous moment 
. Approaches, and earth's best endowment 
Blends with heaven's; the taper-fires 
Pant up, the winding brazen spires 
Heave loftier yet the baldachin.'" 

— Browning's Christmas Eve. 

The baldachin Browning refers to is the canopy over the altar 
of St. Peter's in Rome. It is elevated on superb columns, and 
stands 95 feet high. 

207. 26. — Andromeda. (Classic mythology.) Andromeda is 
chained to the beach, and the horrid sea-monster approaches to 
devour her, secure of his prey ; but the hero Perseus slays him in 
the very nick of time, and marries the lovely maid as his reward. 



NOTES. 333 

See Charles Kingsley's poem Andromeda. For a splendid de- 
scription of a painting of Andromeda, see Browning's Pauiine, vs. 
656 et seq. Though written when Browning was only twenty 
years old, it is in liis best vein. 

207. 27. — Judith. For the dramatic story of Judith and 
Holofernes, see the book Judith in the Apocrypha. The igno- 
rance of the books in the Apocrypha that prevails among school 
and college students is even more dense and profound than that 
of the Bible proper. 

208. 24. — Tyburn. This was at the northeast corner of Hyde 
Park, London. "At this corner of Hyde Park, where the angle 
of Connaught Place now stands, was the famous 'Tyburn Tree,' 
sometimes called the 'Three-Legged Mare,' being a triangle on 
three legs, where the public executions took place till they were 
transferred to Newgate in 1783. The manor of Tyburn took its 
name from the Tye Bourne or brook, which rose under Primrose 
Hill, and the place was originally chosen for executions because, 
though on the high road to Oxford, it was remote from London. 
The condemned were brought hither in a cart from Newgate — 

' thief and parson in a Tyburn cart,' 
the prisoner usually carrying the immense nosegay which, by old 
custom, was presented to him on the steps of St. Sepulchre's 
Church, and having been refreshed with a bowl of ale at St. 
Giles's. The cart was driven underneath the gallows, and, after 
the noose was adjusted, was driven quickly away by Jack Ketch 
the jiangman, so that the prisoner was left suspended. . . . 
Around the place of execution were raised galleries which were 
let to spectators ; they were destroyed by the disappointed mob 
who had engaged them when Dr. Henesey was reprieved in 
1758. The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were 
buried under the Tyburn tree, after hanging there for a day." — 
Hare, Walks in London^ II, loi. 

On October 23, 1668, Pepys writes: "And so away with Mr. 
Pierce, the surgeon, towards Tyburne, to see the people executed ; 
but come too late, it being done ; two men and a woman hanged, 
and so back again and to my coachmaker's." — Diary, ed. Wheat- 
ley, VIII, 120. On April 19, 1662, he had written: "This 
morning, before we sat, I went to Aldgate ; and at the corner 



334 NOTES. 

shop, a draper's, I stood, and did see Barkestead, Okey, and 
Corbet drawn towards the gallows at Tiburne ; and there they 
were hanged and quartered. They all looked very cheerful; but 
I hear they all die defending what they did to the King to be 
just; which is very strange." II, 208. 

209. 3. — Bogey. This word, which is spelled in a variety of 
ways, is derived from the Welsh "bwg," a hobgoblin. The same 
root is seen in "bugbear." 

209. l^. — ^'lVhittington.'' Sir Richard Whittington was born 
about 1350, and from a humble origin succeeded in becoming 
Lord Mayor of London. His typically edifying career made him 
a fit subject for didactic ballads, such as are mentioned here. 
There is a broadside in the Roxburghe Collection, called Lon- 
don's Glory and Whittington s Renown, beginning 

" Brave London Prentices, come listen to my Song." 

— Roxburghe Ballads^ Ballad Society's ed., VII, 582-4. 

See also An Old Ballad of Whittington and his Cat {Roxb. and 
Douce Coll.), Ibid., VII, 585-6. 

The ballad of the '* London 'Prentice" alluded to in the text 
may be the once popular broadside ballad called The Honour of 
a London Prentice ; Being an Account of his tnatchless Manhood 
and brave Adventures done in Turkey, and by ivhat means he mar- 
ried the King's Daughter. {^Roxb., Pepys, and other Colls.) It is 
printed in Roxb. Ballads, as above, VII, 589-91. 

209. 16. — Moll Flanders. Defoe's story with this title is one 
of the first strictly realistic novels in English. It was published 
in 1722. 

209. 19. — ''^ Halfpenny-iinder-the-hat." This is defined in 
Murray's New English Dictionary as " a low game of chance," 
without any particulars : and the only reference given is the one 
in our text. 

210. 4. — Chuck-farthing. A game in which a farthing is 
pitched into a hole ; played for "keeps." Compare the game of 
" pitch-penny." 

210. 30. — Bandolier. A broad leather belt worn by soldiers. 
It used to be worn across the breast, passing from the right 
shoulder under the left arm. Nowadays it is simply the car- 
tridge-belt. 



i 



NOTES. 335 

211. 4. — A splendid marble arch. There are permissible 
doubts as to the real splendour of this arch. Hare says it is 
"one of our national follies — a despicable caricature of the Arch 
of Constantine." — Walks in London, II, 100. It was, like most 
follies, expensive; for its original cost was 75,000 pounds, and it 
later took a goodly sum to move it to its present position at Hyde 
Park. The "polite Tyburnia," from its situation in the West 
End of London, is naturally a much more "respectable district" 
than it was in the good old Tyburn times. 

211. 22. — Dick Turpin. See note to page 98, line 30. 

211. 23. — Squire Western. The famous squire in Tom Jones. 

212. 23. — Bridewell. This was originally a hospital for the 
poor : later it became a penitentiary for loose and disorderly 
characters. It often appears in this connection in the Eliza- 
bethan drama. 

213. 3. — Who ran away with Johnny Cope. Sir John Cope 
was commander-in-chief in Scotland in 1745. At daybreak on 
the morning of September 21 Prince Charles and the Highlanders 
made a fierce attack, which took Cope completely by surprise. 
There was only one thing to do — to run away as fast as possible. 
This Cope succeeded in doing ; and the flight never ceased to 
appeal to the Scots' sense of humour. A song became popular — 

" Hey, Johnie Cope 1 are ye waukin yet? " 

It is only fair to add that an official inquiry completely exonerated 
Cope from all censure. He died in 1760. The date of his birth 
is not known. 

213. 8. — Parson Ada??is. A great character in Fielding's 
Joseph Andrews. There has never been any reason to doubt the 
first judgment of Thomas Gray on this personage, who, shortly 
after the appearance of the story, wrote in a letter, "Parson 
Adams is perfectly well." — Works, ed. Gosse, 11, 107. The book 
was published in February, 1742 : young Richard West, then in 
his last illness, read it, and was delighted; on his earnest recom- 
mendation Gray took up the novel, and in April wrote to West the 
letter from which the above is an extract. 

213. 20. — Jack Hatchway. A character in Smollett's Fere- 
grine Fickle. Lismahago appears in Humphry Clinker. 



33^ NOTES. 

214. 7. — Roderick Random. The hero of Smollett's novel of 
that name. 

214. 13. — Bronghton the boxer. John Broughton was born in 
1705, and lived until 1789, a longer space than is allotted to 
most modern pugilists. He was the father of British prize-fight- 
ing. Before he appeared fights were not generally settled by fists. 
Originally a waterman, he discovered a lucrative career in fight- 
ing, and amassed 7,000 pounds. He was patronised by aristo- 
cratic society, and on the whole was an excellent specimen of his 
profession. 

214. 13. — Sarah Malcobn. She was executed in 1733, when 
she was about twenty-three years old. Hogarth painted a strik- 
ing likeness of her, while she was in prison during her trial for 
murder. 

214. 14. — Sifnon Lovat. Simon Fraser, sometime Master of 
Lovat (1726-1782). He headed his Highland clan against the 
English forces; but he was afterwards pardoned, and served bril- 
liantly in the British army in America and elsewhere, 

214. 14. — John Wilkes. The famous agitator, born in 1727. 
He figured in many libel suits, and was a great mob leader, A 
clever and unscrupulous demagogue, he was the idol of his numer- 
ous followers. He was Lord Mayor of London and a member of 
Parliament. His meeting Dr. Johnson at dinner is most humour- 
ously described by Boswell. (See Boswell's Johnson., ed. Hill, 
III, 74.) The references to Wilkes in Boswell's Johnson take up 
two columns of Hill's admirable index. Wilkes died in 1797. 

219, 6, — Correggio. Antonio Allegri Correggio (1494-1534), a 
great Italian painter. 

219. 6. — The Caracci. Agostino Caracci (1558-1602) and 
Annibal Caracci (1560-1609) were brothers. The latter was a 
pupil of his cousin, Ludovico Caracci (1555-1619). All three 
were famous Italian artists. 

220. 16. — Listons firm belief. John Liston (1776 ?-i846) was 
an exceedingly successful comic actor, but subject to fits of de- 
pression. The gravity of his countenance had not a little to do 
with his great success in comedy. 

220. 2-^.— Churchill. Charles Churchill (1731-1764). His 
Epistle to Hogarth appeared in 1763, and Churchill, Wilkes, and 



NOTES. 337 

Hogarth mingled in various literary and political controversies. 
The Epistle is said to have shortened Hogarth's days; but it seems 
more apparent that it shortened those of Churchill, as he died the 
next year. 

222. 25. — Hopscotch. This game does not seem to be now so 
popular (in New England at any rate) as it was some fifteen or 
twenty years ago, and it may before long join the ranks of the 
extinct games. A chalk figure is marked out on the pavement, 
and a child, hopping on one foot, kicks a stone into the various 
compartments of the figure. 

231. 12. — Doctor Cams. A French physician in Shakspere's 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 

231. 14. — Dalgetty. A character in Sir Walter Scott's novel, 
A Legend of Montrose. 

221' 24. — Bladua's well. Bladud was a mythical king of 
England, supposed to be the father of King Lear. He built the 
city of Bath, and dedicated the medicinal springs to Minerva. 

234. 18. — The Oldfelds and Bracegirdles. For Mrs. Brace- 
girdle see note to page 58, line 5. Anne Oldfield (1683-1730) 
was a favourite actress of her day. When very young she lived 
with her mother at the Mitre Tavern. Farquhar overheard her 
reciting passages from Beaumont and Fletcher, and was immedi- 
ately impressed. Her mother told the dramatist Vanbrugh about 
it, the result being that Anne went on the stage. Her progress 
was slow, but eventually she became one of England's greatest 
actresses in both tragedy and comedy. She was the original 
Biddy Tipkin in Steele's Tender Husband (^I'jo^). Personally she 
was sensible, agreeable, and an exceedingly attractive woman. 
Her body lies buried beneath the monument of Congreve in West- 
minster Abbey. She lives again on the stage to-day in Miss Ellen 
Terry's admirable impersonation, in Charles Reade's comedy, 
Na?2ce Oldfield. 

It was Oldfield who practically drove Bracegirdle off the stage; 
they came into competition in 1706-7, with the result that the 
former was so successful that the latter retired. 

237. 4. — In ridicule of '■'■ Pamela.'" This novel, the first of the 
three great works of Richardson, was published in 1740. Its 
didacticism and sentimentality made it a natural target for the 



338 NOTES. 

powerful satirical wit of Fielding; but it is easy, especially if one 
has never read him, to ridicule Richardson, and meanwhile to for- 
get his great genius and extraordinary power of analysis. Pamela, 
with all its obvious faults, is a great book, and Clarissa Harlowe 
is greater. And though Joseph Andreius made everybody laugh 
at the weak spots in Pamela, there has seldom been a more clever 
criticism passed on a great novel than when Richardson said that 
the virtues of Tom Jones were good men's vices. 

Richardson never could endure Fielding. In a letter that he 
wrote to Mrs. Donnellan on February 22, 1752, he says : "You 
guess that I have not read Amelia. Indeed I have read but the 
first volume. I had intended to go through with it; but I found 
the characters and situations so wretchedly low and dirty, that I 
imagined I could not be interested for any one of them; and to 
read and not to care what became of the hero and heroine, is a 
task that I thought I would leave to those who had more leisure 
than I am blessed with. 

"Parson Young sat for Fielding's parson Adams, a man he 
knew, and only made a little more absurd than he is known to be. 
The best story in the piece, is of himself and his first wife. In his 
Tom Jones, his hero is made a natural child, because his own first 
wife was such. Tom Jones is Fielding himself, hardened in some 
places, softened in others. His Lady Bellaston is an infamous 
woman of his former acquaintance. His Sophia is again his first 
wife. Booth, in his last piece, again himself; Amelia, even to her 
noselessness, is again his first wife. His brawls, his jarrs, his 
gaols, his spunging-houses, are all drawn from what he has seen 
and known. As I said (witness also his hamper plot) he has lit- 
tle or no invention : and admirably do you observe, that by seve- 
ral strokes in his Amelia he designed to be good, but knew not 
how, and lost his genius, low humour, in the attempt." — Richard- 
son's Correspondence, ed. Barbauld, IV, 60. 

Richardson's criticising Fielding for having little or no inven- 
tion, and attempting to prove the charge by showing that Fielding 
drew his characters from the life, is rather interesting. Richard- 
son's friend and correspondent, the worthy sonnetteer Thomas 
Edwards, had as low an opinion ot Fielding as Richardson ex- 
pressed. In a letter to Richardson on May 28, 1755, ^^ ^^ys •* 



NOTES. 339 

"I have lately read over with much indignation P'ielding's last 
piece, called his Voyage to Lisbon. That a man, who had led 
such a life as he had, should trifle in that manner when immediate 
death was before his eyes, is amazing. From this book I am con- 
firmed in what his other works had fully persuaded me of, that 
with all his parade of pretences to virtuous and humane affections, 
the fellow had no heart. And so — his knell is knolled." — Rich- 
ardson's Correspondeftce, III, 125. 

238. 15. — Walpole quite honestly spoke of them. This was 
practically the language that Walpole used in speaking of the 
novels of Richardson. He said, Richardson "wrote those de- 
plorably tedious lamentations, ' Clarissa ' and ' Sir Charles ■ 
Grandison,' which are pictures of high life as conceived by a 
bookseller, and romances as they would be spiritualised by a 
Methodist teacher." — Letters^ IV, 305. 

238. 21. — The kind and jvise old Johnson. "Fielding being 
mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, ' he was a blockhead ; ' and 
upon my expressing my astonishment at so strange an assertion, 
he said, ' What I mean by his being a blockhead is that he was 
a barren rascal.' Boswell. 'Will you not allow. Sir, that he 
draws very natural pictures of human life ? ' Johnson. 'Why, Sir, 
it is of very low life. . . . Sir, there is more knowledge of the 
heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones.'" — 
Boswell's Johnson^ ed. Hill, II, 199. 

238. 25. — Gibbon wrote of him. This passage appears in Gib- 
bon's Miscellaneous IVorks, I, 4. Thackeray's quotation is not 
strictly accurate. " Humour and manners " should read " Human 
manners," and there are other minor mistakes which do not, how- 
ever, change the import of the passage. 

In view of Gibbon's correct estimate of the immortality of Tom 
Jones, it is amusing to read in Richardson's Correspondence, five 
years after the publication of the novel, "Its run is over, even 
with us." — Correspondence, V, 275. 

240. 5. — Blifil. Blifil, Lady Bellaston, Parson Thwackum, 
and "Miss Seagrim" are all characters in Tom Jones. 

241. 5. — Charles and Joseph Surface. These are famous char- 
acters in Sheridan's comedy. The School for Scandal. The latter 
has become a synonym for a hypocrite. 



340 NOTES. 

243. 8. — Fiction ! why Jictio7i? This is just what Richardson 
objected to, as showing that Fielding had no invention. See note 
to page 237, line 4. 

243. 9. — Lady Mary Worthy Alontagu. This distinguished 
personage, mentioned so often in books dealing with life and lit- 
erature in the eighteenth century, was one of the most brilliant, 
attractive, accomplished, and worldly-minded women of her age. 
Pope had a sickening sentimental feeling toward her, as his let- 
ters show. His Eloisa was written under her inspiration. She 
was born in 1689, and died in 1762. 

243. 10. — Colonel Bath. A character in ^w<?//a. 

243. II. — Colonel Gardiner. James Gardiner, colonel of dra- 
goons, was born in 1688, and died in 1745. He became an en- 
sign at the age of fourteen, and in 1702 entered the service of 
Anne. He exhibited the greatest gallantry at the battle of Ra- 
millies in 1706, where he was wounded in the face. Although as 
a youth he indulged in dissipation, he happened to pick up a 
religious book one day while waiting for an assignation, and was 
instantly converted. He declared and always stoutly maintained 
that at that time he saw a vision of Jesus Christ. In battle after 
battle he showed astonishing personal courage, performing with 
delight the most dare-devil deeds. At last, in the rebellion of 
1745, while fighting the Pretender's forces in a battle that was 
from the start hopelessly against him, he refused to quit the field, 
although literally covered with dangerous and painful wounds. 
Finally a Highlander came behind him while he was engaged in 
a personal struggle with an opposing officer, and gave him a 
mortal blow in the back of the head with an axe. He died on 
the next day. 

243. 12. — Duke of Cumberland. See note to page 163. 

244. I. — Coup de main. A deft stroke. 

Thackeray's treatment of Fielding is particularly sympathetic, 
but at the same time discriminating. His praise of the more manly 
elements in Fielding's character is thoroughly merited, and he 
does not go any further than hundreds and thousands of readers 
and admirers of Fielding would go to-day. The difference be- 
tween Thackeray's estimate of Fielding and his estimate of Pope 



NOTES. 341 

is simply this : he praises the former for qualities he actually pos- 
sessed; while Pope he lauds highly for virtues conspicuous by 
their absence. Furthermore, apart from the manliness and open- 
hearted generosity of Fielding's character, which would especially 
appeal to a man of Thackeray's temperament, the great novelist 
of the nineteenth century recognised the great novelist of the 
eighteenth century as his master, from whom he chiefly learned 
the art of fiction; as indeed is evident to any intelligent reader 
of Thackeray's books. Perhaps the highest compliment we can 
pay Fielding, is to say, as many of us do, after reading and re- 
reading Tom Jones ^ " This man was worthy to be the master of 
Thackeray." 

STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 
248. 4 — Reign of Charles 11. The note at the bottom of the 
page refers to the years in which he held the Archbishopric, not 
to the length of the king's reign, which extended from 1660 to 
1685. 

248. 14. — Poor Roger Sterne. "His son described him in an 
autobiographic fragment as * a little smart man, active to the last 
degree in all exercises — most patient of fatigue and disappoint- 
ments, of which it pleased God to give him full measure; he was 
in his temper somewhat rapid and hasty, but of kindly disposition, 
void of all design, and so innocent in his own intentions that he 
suspected no one.'" {Diet. Nat. Biog., art. Sterne, Laurence.) 
This description would hardly apply to the more famous and yet 
despicable son. 

249. 4. — Ireland. Note that Sterne, like Swift, was born in 
Ireland, though their fathers were English; while Goldsmith was 
Irish through and through. Clonmel is near the extreme southern 
boundary of the county of Tipperary. 

249. 8. — Mullingar. This town is in the county of West Meath, 
and is about fifty miles northwest of Dublin. 

249. 10. — Carrickfergus. This is a seaport-town on the north- 
east coast of Ireland, about ten miles from Belfast, It is in the 
county of Antrim, but is also a separate county all by itself. 
King William III landed there in June, 1690, just before the great 
battle of the Boyne. The town is famous for its beautiful old 



342 NOTES. 

castle, which stands on a lofty cliff by the sea, and is thought to 
be about seven hundred years old. 

249, II. — Halifax. This is in the county of York, England, 
situated about 194 miles northwest of London. It is now a great 
manufacturing center. 

249- 13- — Elvington. This village is about six miles southeast 
of the city of York. 

In any study of literature, the student should always have at 
hand good maps, and should look up the location of all places that 
are mentioned, in order to familarise himself particularly with the 
literary geography of Great Britain, a subject on which most 
American school and college students are densely ignorant — an 
ignorance which they share in common with many persons who 
have had no education at all. 

249. 18. — Trim s viontero cap, and Le Fevre s sivord, and dear 
Uncle Toby's roquelatire. These men are all characters in Tris- 
tram Shandy. " Montero cap" is really tautological: the word 
" montero " means a hunting cap. " Roquelaure " is a cloak 
that reaches about to the knees: it was commonly worn in the 
eighteenth century, and took its name from the Due de Roque- 
laure, in the reign of Louis XIV. 

249. 23. — Ramillies. . . Malplaquet. For these, see notes to 
page 100, line 21. 

250. 10. — Sutton. This was a village, seven or eight miles 
north of York. 

250. 12. — Stillington. This parish was situated next to Sut- 
ton. Sterne never lived in this parsonage: he doubtless regarded 
it merely as an additional source of revenue, which indeed it was. 

250. 32. — Coxuwld. This village was pleasantly situated on 
high ground, about twenty-two miles north of York. Sterne had 
never liked the climate of Sutton, and moved to Coxwold with the 
greatest pleasure. Here he lived in a large cottage, which he 
called "Shandy Hall." The house now has a tablet in memory 
of its distinguished occupant, who continued the composition of 
Tristram while living there. 

251. 16. — Polyanthus. The oxlip. 

252. 6. — Sum mortaliter in amore. "I am hopelessly in 
love." 



NOTES. 343 

252. 13. — Arroser. To water. 

252. 20. — The French of this letter may be thus translated: 
"We arrived on the morrow at Montpellier, where we found our 
friend Mr. Sterne, his wife, his daughter, Mr. Huet, and some 
other English ladies. I got, I own, much pleasure, in seeing again 
the good and charming Tristram. , . . He had been long enough 
at Toulouse, where he would have amused himself save for his 
wife, who followed him up everywhere, and who wished to have 
a hand in everything. This lady's little ways made him undergo 
some decidedly unpleasant moments; but he bears up under all 
these trials with the patience of an angel." 

253. 2. — The charmittg Yorick. The easy-going parson in 
Tristram Shandy. See note at bottom of page 254. The Sejtti- 
mental Jotirney also purported to come from the pen of ' ' Mr. 
Yorick." 

253. 5. — Rabelais. Frangois Rabelais, one of the first great 
names in French literature, was born toward the end of the 
fifteenth century, and died about the year 1553. Although a 
churchman, the tone of his writings is not too ecclesiastic. Swift 
is sometimes called the English Rabelais. 

253. 7. — Meudon. A small town in the immediate neighborhood 
of Paris, about five miles to the southwest. It stands on rising 
ground, and commands a particularly good view of the city and 
of the course of the Seine. The church was built in the sixteenth 
century, and is interesting only for the association with the name 
of Rabelais, who was made cure of Meudon in 1550. Many 
French poets and writers have frequented this beautiful retreat: 
Victor Hugo has spoken of it affectionately, and Daudet, Flaubert, 
and others used to meet th^re. 

253. 25. — Grafs Letters. The quotation given in this foot- 
note is really from two letters of Gray. The first part up to the 
words "As to the volumes," is from a letter to Thomas Wharton, 
April 22, 1760; the second is garbled, and may be found in 
Gray's letter to Wharton, July, 1760. See Gray's Works, ed. 
Gosse, II, 36, 53. The quotation, however, was probably taken 
directly from Mason' s Life of Gray, where it stands as in the note 
to our text. Mason was the literary executor of Gray, and in 
1775 published the Life^ containing the correspondence, and other 



344 NOTES. 

documents. His honesty and editorial accuracy may be justly 
estimated by the footnote to our text, which gives under the wrong 
date an extract from a letter, which is really hashed up and 
garbled from two letters, and contains some words not to be 
found in Gray's correspondence at all. 

253. 26. — ''// having been observed" etc. This quotation 
may be found in Boswell's Johnson^ ed. Hill, II, 254. Dr. Hill 
adds a footnote, by which Johnson would not appear after all to 
have differed so much from the drastic opinion expressed by 
Goldsmith. "I was but once," said Johnson, " in Sterne's com- 
pany, and then his only attempt at merriment consisted in his 
display of a drawing too indecently gross to have delighted even 
in a brothel." 

253. 32. — <'/r^;',"etc. Boswell's y(?//«Jt7«, IV, 126. See also 
the footnote on the same page of Boswell, where Johnson con- 
demned the sermons of Sterne, saying that he once read them in 
a stage-coach, but that he should not have deigned to have looked 
at them had he been " at large." 

254. I. — The more than rival. It is rather singular that the 
writings of Sterne, Rabelais, and Swift, when all three were 
churchmen, should have a reputation and a circulation on account 
of their coarseness wholly distinct from their literary importance. 

256. 28. — V amour. " Love is nothing without sentiment. " 

257. 13. — Deal. Deal is on the coast of the English Channel, 
nine miles north of Dover. 

257. 23. — '■^ And so /should ever love thee." This passage 
really reads, " And so I should ever live with thee." Thackeray 
also garbles this letter, but not in a way to alter its significance 
at all. See Letters, etc., of Sterne, ed. Saintsbury, I, 140. 

258. 3. — '■^Ifear" etc. Saintsbury's edition, II, 5. There 
are several minor changes in Thackeray's version, as "your 
judgment" for ''the judgment," and others. 

■ 258. 13. — ^^ I honour you, Eliza.^^ See Saintsbury's edition, 
II, 9. After the words "Waller his Saccharissa," Sterne wrote 
the still more significant phrase, " as I will love and sing thee, 
my wife elect ! " 

258. 29. — Scarron his Afaitttenon. Paul Scarron (1610-1660), 
a burlesque writer. As a youth he was extremely dissipated ; in 



NOTES. 345 

1637 paralysis seized him, and he became unable to walk. Then 
he took to literature ; and by his writings of burlesques and simi- 
lar compositions he obtained a wide reputation. In 1652 he was 
married to Fran^oise D'Aubigne, afterward Madame de Mainte- 
non. Their house was a great rendezvous for the wits of the 
day. The famous Madame de Maintenon was born in prison in 
1635, being of Protestant parents. Later she went to a convent, 
and after a long struggle became a Roman Catholic. In 1669 
she became governess to some of the children of Louis XIV, and 
soon obtained almost a complete ascendancy over him. It was, 
of course, generally believed that she was his mistress; but there 
is really good ground for believing not only that she refused to 
yield to him, but that she endeavoured to exercise a moral influ- 
ence upon his conduct. In 1683 Louis privately married her, 
though the marriage was never publicly recognised. He never 
ceased to love her; but she left him on his deathbed. She insti- 
gated his persecutions of the Protestants, and caused him to issue 
the famous revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685). She sur- 
vived the king four years, dying April 15, 1719. 

G. W. Cooke, in his Browning Guide-Book^ intimates that the 
poet alludes to the marriage of Paul Scarron with Fran9oise 
D'Aubigne in the poem In a Balcony, vs. 521, 522 : 

" Who was a queen and loved a poet once 
Humpbacked, a dwarf ? ah, women can do that ! " 

But she was not a queen either before or after her marriage with 
Scarron. 

258. 29. — Waller his Saccharissa. Edmund Waller (1605- 
1687) had an enormous reputation as an English poet in his time, 
but is very little read to-day except by students of the develop- 
ment of English literature, where he holds a place out of all pro- 
portion to his intrinsic merit a-s a poet. He marks the transition 
from the powerful but rugged verse of the early part of the sev- 
enteenth century to the smooth rimed couplets which were the 
universal style at its close. Dryden regarded his genius with 
reverence, and the prefaces to his plays contain many allusions 
to Waller's skill in versification, and the resulting good effect on 
English letters. Pope said, "Waller was smooth " {^First Epistle 



34^ NOTES. 



I 



of the Second Book of Horace, vs. 267), to which Lowell assents, 
but adds: "Unhappily he was also flat." {Essay on Dry den.) 
For a good though somewhat overdrawn account of Waller' s in- 
fluence on literary style, see Mr. Gosse's book, Erom Shakespeare 
to Pope, of which Waller is the hero. Saccharissa was Lady 
Dorothy Sidney, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, and 
descended from Sir Philip Sidney. Waller loved, or thought he 
loved, this lady ; he wrote a number of poems addressed to her, 
and gave her the sugary appellation by which she is now chiefly 
known. But she was obdurate, and cared not at all for the poet. 
259. 6. — Offering that precious treasure his heart to Lady 

P . The portion of this letter to which Thackeray alludes 

is worth printing, as it proves Sterne's utter baseness of soul in a 
way that would be thought incredible, did we not have the neces- 
sary documentary evidence. The only truth in the letter is 
the remark, "I am a fool," and his description of his soul as a 
"dishclout." It makes one almost blush for human nature when 
one reads the following words : "It is but an hour ago that I 
kneeled down and swore I never would come near you — an' after 
saying my Lord's Prayer for the sake of the close, of not being led 
into temptation — out I sallied like any Christian hero, ready to 
take the field against the world, the flesh, and the devil; not doubt- 
ing but I should finally trample them all down under my feet — 
and now am I got so near you — within this vile stone's cast of your 
house — I feel myself drawn into a vortex, that has turned my 
brain upside downwards, and though I had purchased a box 
ticket to carry me to Miss ***** 's benefit, yet I know very well, 

that was a single line directed to me to let me know Lady 

would be alone at seven, and suffer me to spend the evening with 
her, she would infallibly see every thing verified I have told her. 
— I dine at Mr. C r's in Wigmore-street, in this neigh- 
bourhood, where I shall stay till seven, in hopes you purpose to 
put me to this proof. If I hear nothing by that time, I shall con- 
clude you are better disposed of — and shall take a sorry hack, and 
sorrily jog on to the play — Curse on the word. I know nothing 
but sorrow — except this one thing, that I love you (perhaps fool- 
ishly, but) most sincerely. L. Sterne." 
{Letters, etc., ed. Saintsbury, II, 16.) 



NOTES. 347 

260. 8. — To Uie Earl of . The letter here printed may- 
be found in Saintsbury's edition, II, 44. It differs slightly from 
the one in our text. 

260. 32. — The manner of his death. See King Henry V^ Act 
II, Scene 3. It is curious that Sterne's monument gives the date 
of his death erroneously as September 13. See Saintsbury's 
edition of the Letters^ etc. , I, 9. 

261. 27. — Dr. Ferriar. John Ferriar (1761-1815), a well- 
known physician. He was born in Scotland, but his whole career 
was associated with Manchester. He wrote papers for the literary 
and philosophical society of that town, and was an influential and 
valuable reformer of the sanitary conditions there. He made a 
large number of miscellaneous literary efforts, his best-known work 
being Illustratiotis of Sterne, which appeared at Manchester in 
1798. Ferriar showed up Sterne's wholesale borrowings from 
French novelists, and especially from Burton's immortal work, 
The Anatomy of Melancholy, though his attitude was not un- 
friendly. 

261. 32. — fames Macdonald. An error for John Macdonald. 
The dates of his birth and death are not known. He was the son 
of a Scotch cattle-dealer, who was killed at Culloden. Alter 
wandering for years as a vagabond, Macdonald became a gentle- 
man's servant, and from his cleverness and variety of attractions, 
was known as Beau Macdonald. He traveled extensively, and in 
1790 his book, Travels in Various Parts, was published. "Ac- 
cording to this racy narrative, Macdonald, while in London with 
his master, Mr. Crawford of Errol, was sent to inquire after the 
health of Laurence Sterne, and found the novelist on his death- 
bed. He claims to have been among the first to walk in London 
with an umbrella." — Diet. Nat. Biog., art. Macdonald. The tes- 
timony of Macdonald should probably be taken with a grain of 
salt. 

262. II. — Des chansons grivoises. Songs that are off colour. 
An exceedingly good illustration of Sterne's attitude toward life. 

263. 7. — Who can make you cry. His ability to make us cry is 
not particularly remarkable. We are not more callous than were 
the readers of Sterne in the eighteenth century; but what drew 
tears from them often makes us smile or yawn. 



34^ NOTES. 

263. 22. — (the de'sobligeante). Sterne spelled the word without 
the final "e," and it so appears in the first edition of the Humour- 
ists. Nor does the word end the paragraph in the first edition. 

The carriage was so calhed because it held only one person. 
The quoted passage that follows is from the chapter headed 
"Calais." It may be found in Saintsbury's edition of the Senti- 
mental Journey., page 15. 

264. 3. — Le tour est fait. The trick is done. 

264. 3. — Paillasse. The word means literally, "straw mat- 
tress." Hence a clown with stuffed or padded clothea 

264. 24. — Monsieur de Soubises cook. Charles de Rohan, 
Prince de Soubise (17 15-1787), peer and marshal of Franco, was 
a grandson of one of the mistresses of Louis XIV. He was a 
clever courtier, and favourite of Louis XV, and for that reason, 
although utterly deficient in military genius, was created a mar- 
shal of France. In the Seven Years War, through the influence 
of Madame de Pompadour, he was placed at the head of an army, 
and on November 4, 1757, he was completely defeated at Ross- 
bach. This battle, according to the Encyclopedia B^'itannica, 
was one of the decisive battles of the world, though no one 
thought so at the time. Everyone laughed at the luxuries in the 
camp of Soubise, who regarded a good cook as more essential to a 
general than any other official. After 1763 Soubise lived merely 
the ordinary frivolous, time-serving, and dissipated life of a 
French courtier. 

268. 21. — Viva laJoia,Jidon la tristessa. Long live mirth : 
do away with sadness. 

I 269. 9. — Double entendre. A double meaning, immorally sug- 
gestive. Not even the French show more skill than Sterne does 
in this kind of thing. 

270. 8. — David Copper-field. This great novel had appeared 
only a year before Thackeray delivered his lectures. He was thus 
alluding to a contemporary book, very much as a lecturer to-day 
would refer to Richard Carvel or to David Harum. Nothing 
could better illustrate the difference in greatness between the 
novels of to-day and those of fifty years ago than a comparison of 
the big "sellers" of 1900 with the popular novels of 1850. In 
his lecture on Charity and Humour ^ which appeared in the first 



NOTES, 349 

American, though not in the first English edition of the Hlwiotir- 
isis, Thackeray alludes to the books of his great rival in the most 
affectionate and enthusiastic manner. Wholly apart from his 
utter baseness, Sterne as a humourist sinks into insignificance 
when compared with Dickens and Thackeray. 

270. 10. — Jete stir cette bouie. This may be roughly trans- 
lated as follows : 

Thrown upon this world, 
Ugly, puny, and miserable : 
Smothered in the crowd 
For lack of size, 

A touching complaint 
Came from my mouth. 
The good God says : Sing, 
Sing, poor child ! 

To sing, unless I mistake, 
Is my task here below : 
Won't all those I amuse 
Love me dearly ? 

270. 22. — Beranger. Beranger was born at Paris in 1780, and 
died in 1857. He published his first collection of songs in 1815. 
He passed three months in prison and paid a fine of three hun- 
dred francs. In 1828 he was imprisoned for nine months and 
paid a fine of ten thousand francs. These punishments were in- 
flicted upon him for political reasons, on account of the satirical 
tendency of some of his verses; but as may -easily be imagined, 
they did not injure the popularity of his poetry. Beranger is one 
of the most natural, graceful, and tuneful lyrical poets that France 
has ever produced. And the stirring effect of his poems and 
songs on his countrymen was very great. 

271. II. — Auburn and IVakeJic^ld. See page 274, line 7. Wake- 
field is in Yorkshire, England. 

275. 38. — And drc\gs, etc. Although this famous line is orig- 
inal with Goldsmith, he wrote it first in prose, and then trans- 
ferred it to his poetry. In the Citizen of the Worlds Letter III, he 
says : "By every remove I only drag a greater length of chain." 

276. 9. — Elphin. This is in the county of Roscommon, in 
about the center of Ireland. 



350 NOTES. 

276. 15. — Kind uncle Contarinc. Mr. Contarine was ''the 
only member of the Goldsmith family of whom we have solid evi- 
dence that he at any time took pains with Oliver, or felt anything 
like a real pride in him. He bore the greater part of his school 
expenses ; and was wont to receive him with delight in holidays." 
Forster's Life of Goldsmith, page 17. 

276. 20. — Everybody knozvs the story. The story, of course, 
on which the great play. She Stoops to Conquer , was founded. 

"At the close of his last holidays, then a lad of nearly seven- 
teen, he left home for Edgeworthstown, mounted on^ borrowed 
hack which a friend was to restore to Lissoy, and with store of 
unaccustomed wealth, a guinea, iii his pocket. The delicious taste 
of independence beguiled him to a loitering, lingering, pleasant 
enjoyment of the journey; and, instead of finding himself under 
Mr. Hughes's roof at nightfall, night fell upon him some two or 
three miles out of the direct road, in the middle of the streets of 
Ardagh. But nothing could disconcert the owner of the guinea, 
who, with a lofty, confident air, inquired of a person passing the 
way to the town's best house of entertainment. The man ad- 
dressed was the wag of Ardagh, a humorous fencing-master, Mr. 
Cornelius Kelly, and the schoolboy swagger was irresistible pro- 
vocation to a jest. Submissively he turned back with horse and 
rider till they came within a pace or two of the great Squire 
Featherston's, to which he respectfully pointed as the ' best house ' 
of Ardagh. Oliver rang at the gate, gave his beast in charge 
with authoritative rigour, and was shown, as a supposed expected 
guest, into the comfortable parlour of the squire. Those were 
days when Irish inn-keepers and Irish squires more nearly ap- 
proximated than now ; and Mr. Featherston, unlike the excellent 
but explosive Mr. Hardcastle, is said to have seen the mistake 
and humoured it. Oliver had a supper which gave him so much 
satisfaction, that he ordered a bottle of wine to follow; and the 
attentive landlord was not only forced to drink with him, but with 
a like familiar condescension, the wife and pretty daughter were 
invited to the supper-room. Going to bed, he stopped to give 
special instructions for a hot cake to breakfast ; and it was not 
till he had despatched this latter meal, and was looking at his 
guinea with pathetic aspect of farewell, that the truth was told 



NOTES. 351 

him by the good-natured squire."— Forster's Zz/^ of Goldstnith, 
page 14. Ardagh and Edgeworthstown are in the county of Long- 
ford, in the central part of Ireland. 

279. ?>.— Wrote most anmsing pompous letter's. " After having 
spent two winters in Edinburgh, I now prepare to go to France 
the loth of next February. I have seen all that this country can 
exhibit in the medical way, and therefore intend to visit Paris, 
where the great Mr. Farhein, Petit, and Du Hammel de Monceau 
instruct their pupil? in all the branches of medicine. They speak 
French, and consequently I shall have much the advantage of most 
of my countrymen, as I am perfectly acquainted with that lan- 
guage, and few who leave Ireland are so."— Prior's Life of Gold- 
smith, I, 155. Neither Goldsmith nor Thackeray knew how to 
spell the name of '' the great Farheim " correctly. The person in 
question was Antoine Ferrein (1692-1769), a distinguished man in 
his day. In 1742 he was made Professor of Medicine and Sur- 
gery at the Royal College in Paris. Petit, or, as Thackeray er- 
roneously calls himZ>« Petit, was born at Orleans in 17 18, and was 
a famous and excellent lecturer at Paris. After the death of Fer- 
rein, he held the chair of Anatomy at the Jardin du Roi. The 
Jardin du Roi is the same as what is now called the Jardin des 
Plantes, and has a Museum of Natural History. The Professorial 
chairs in this great institution go back to the seventeenth century. 
Petit died in 1794. In \\\^ Biographisches Lexicon der Hervor- 
ragenden Aerzte aller Zeiten und Volker, ed. Hirsch, Wien und 
Leipzig, 1885, the third doctor that Goldsmith mentions does not 
appear, either in Goldsmith's or Thackeray's orthography. The 
man in question, however, is probably Henri Louis Duhamel- 
Dumonceau (1700-1782), a great French botanist. He produced 
many works on plants and agriculture, and was a thoroughly 
scientific writer. 

279. 12.— If Oliver' s mother believed. This highly interesting 
letter may be read in Prior's Life of Goldsmith, I, 119. It is well 
worth reading, though it is too long to quote here. 

279. i^.—Ballymahon. This is in the county of Longford, 
south ot Ardagh. 

Z'jg. 2C). — '' But'me not destined," iiic. From the Trave//er. - 

280. 5. — I spoke in a former le'ctiire. See page 244, et seq. 



352 NOTES. 

282. 8. — The Court patronized Beattie. James Beattie (1735- 
1803), famous chiefly as the author of the long Spenserian poem, 
The Minstrel. 

282. 10. — Fashion pronounced Kelly. Hugh Kelly (1739- 
1777), a dramatist. His play, False Delicacy^ a sentimental and 
weak comedy, was produced at Drury Lane on January 23, 1768, 
six days before Goldsmith's Good-Natured-Man. It was very suc- 
cessful on the stage, and on the day it was printed three thousand 
copies were sold before two o'clock. It was translated into Ger- 
man, French, and Portuguese. Goldsmith and Kelly quarrelled 
over this matter and never spoke again. But Kelly attended 
Goldsmith's funeral and stood weeping at the grave. 

282. 15. — Newbery kept back the manuso'ipt. There were 
several publishers contemporary with Goldsmith of the name of 
Newbery — John, his son Francis, and Francis, the first cousin of 
the latter. This cousin was closely allied with his uncle in the 
publishing business, and it was he who published the Vicar of 
Wakefield. It appeared on March 27, 1766 ; and it had been 
held by Newbery until the success of The Traveller had fully 
established Goldsmith's reputation. The book was partly written 
as early as 1762 ; and had Goldsmith shown any care in money 
matters, its publication need not have been delayed. 

Goldsmith's four most famous works, The Traveller, The Vicar 
of Wakefield, The Deserted Village, and She Stoops to Conquer, 
appeared in 1764, 1766, 1770, and 1773, respectively. He died 
in 1774. 

283. I. — Cobnan s actors. George Colman the elder (1732- 
1794) was a prominent dramatist and manager of the times, and 
should not be confused with his more famous son. Goldsmith 
had written She Stoops to Conquer in 177 1. It was offered to 
Colman the next year. He hesitated about accepting it until 
January, 1773, when he succumbed to the entreaties of Dr. John- 
son. Colman's doubts and fears were increased by his actors, 
some of whom threw up their parts in disgust, believing the play 
would fail utterly. Finally it was performed at Covent Garden 
March 15, 1773. Dr. Johnson led a party of friends to the per- 
formance on the opening night, where he had the gratification of 
seeing the play make a tremendous hit. The success of this 



NOTES. 353 

drama did much to destroy the prevailing sentimental comedy, 
which at that time was in great vogue. The chief mistake of 
the sentimental comedy was that it did not make the spectators 
laugh ; and when Englishmen go to see a comedy they want to 
laugh without trying to. In this respect Goldsmith's play has 
never been found wanting, and, when well acted, it is to-day one 
of the most laughable pieces on the stage. Its wholesome laugh- 
ter is needed now to clear the air, as it did in the eighteenth 
century. 

283. 5. — The admirable /Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723- 
1792), the great portrait painter, and favourite companion of 
Johnson and of all the wits of the day. The charm of his person- 
ality affects everyone who is familiar with the men and manners 
of the age of Johnson. No wonder that Goldsmith was cheerful 
under misfortunes when he had such a circle of friends as John- 
son, Reynolds, Gibbon, and Burke. The conversation of such 
men would atone for many sorrows. 

283. 7. — The great Fox. Charles James Fox (1749-1806), the 
great Parliamentary orator and statesman. He was unselfish, 
good-tempered, dissipated, and a warm popular favourite. He 
lies buried in Westminster Abbey close by the grave of Pitt. In 
the novel Richard Carvel there is a highly-coloured portrait of 
Fox, showing his dissipation and his personal magnetism. 

283. 28, — TtJ one Griffiths, a bookseller. This extraordinary 
letter, together with further information on Griffiths, may be 
found in Forster's Life of Goldsmith, page 102. The letter is too 
long to quote here ; but the student of Goldsmith should certainly 
look it up in F'orster. 

285. 27. — Edgware Road. The Biographical edition follows 
the first edition of the Humourists in this misprint for "Edge- 
ware." The quotation may be found in Boswell's Life of John- 
son, ed. Hill, II, 209. 

285. 31. — Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad. William Julius 
Mickle (1735-1788) was a poet who enjoyed considerable popu- 
larity in his time, some of which he deserved. He belongs to 
the eighteenth century group of Spenserian imitators by virtue of 
his poem, The Concubine {i'j6'j), the title of which he afterward 
changed to Syr Martyti. See Professor H. A. Beers's History of 



354 NOTES, 



English Romanticis7?i in the Eighteenth Century, page 95. The 
Lusiad was a translation of the great Portuguese poem by Ca- 
moens, Os Lusiadas. Mickle's translation was published in 
1775, and was very successful. Camoens (1524-1580) is the 
foremost epic and lyric poet of Portugal. His great work was 
published in 1572, and although it brought him immense fame 
and popularity, he continued to live in unrelieved poverty. The 
Lusiad, or, more properly, the Lusiads, is the great national 
poem of Portuguese literature and its representative epic. Be- 
sides this translation, Mickle wrote some short ballads which 
have great charm. 

287. I. — Here, as I take. From the Deserted Village. 

288. 9. — The Irish Yvetot. The idea suggested by the word 
''Yvetot" here is "miniature kingdom." Yvetot is a small 
town in Normandy near Le Havre. The lords of Yvetot got the 
title of King in the fifteenth century. Thackeray probably had 
in mind Beranger's beautiful ballad Le Roi d' Yvetot, composed 
in 1813, where, of course, the reference is to Napoleon. This 
lyric is so charming that it is worth while to quote it here : 

II dtait un roi d'Yvetot 

Peu connu dans Thistoire, 
Se levant tard, se couchant tot, 

Dormant fort bien sans gloire, 
Et couronn^ par Jeanneton 
D'un simple bonnet de coton, . 

Dit-on. 
Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! ah ! ah ! ah 1 ah ! 
Quel bon petit roi c'^tait 1^ ! 
La, la. 

II faisait ses quatre repas 

Dans son palais de chaume, 
Et sur un ane, pas k pas, 

Parcourait son royaume. 
Joyeux, simple et croyant le bien, 
Pour toute garde il n'avait rien 

Qu'un chien. 
Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! etc. 

II n'avait de goiit ondreux 

Qu'une soif un peu vive ; 
Mais, en rendant son peuple heureux, 

II faut bien qu'un roi vive. 



1 



NOTES. 355 

Lui-meme, k table, et sans suppot, 
Sur chaque muid-levrit un pot 

DMmpot. 
Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! etc. 

Aux filles de bonnes maisons 

Comme il avait su plaire, 
Ses sujets avaient cent raisons 

De le nommer leur pere. 
D'ailleurs, il ne levait de ban 
j^ue pour tirer, quatre fois Tan, 

Au blanc. 
Oh ! oh 1 oh ! oh ! etc. 

II n'agrandit point ses Etats 

Fut un voisin commode, 
Et, modele des potentats, 

Prit ie piaisir pour code, 
Ce n'est que .'orsqu'il expira 
Que le peuple, qui Penterra, 

Pleura. 
Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! etc. 

On conserve encor le portrait 
De ce digne et bon prince : 
C'est Tenseigne d"un cabaret 

Fameux dans la province, 
Les jours de fete, bien souvent, 
La foule s'ecrie en buvant 

Devant: 
Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! etc. 

Thackeray's own imitation of this ballad is interesting (see 
Works, Biographical edition, XIII, 137). 

There was a king of Yvetot, 

Of whom renown hath little said, 
Who let all thoughts of glory go, 

And dawdled half his days abed ; 
And every night, as night came roun 
By Jenny with a nightcap crowned. 
Slept very sound: 

Sing ho, ho, ho ! and he, he, he I 

That's the kind of king for me. 

And every day it came to pass. 

That four lusty meals made he ; 
And, step by step, upon an ass, 

Rode abroad, his realms to see : 



356 NOTES. 

And wherever he did stir, 
What think you was his escort, sir ? 
Why, an old cur. 
Sing ho, ho, ho ! &c. 

If e'er he went into excess, 

'Twas from a somewhat lively thirst ; 
But he who would his subjects bless. 

Odd's fish !— must wet his whistle first ; 
And so from every cask they got. 
Our king did to himself allot 
At least a pot. 

Sing ho, ho ! &c. 

To all the ladies of the land, 

A courteous king, and kind, was he — 
The reason why, you'll understand. 

They named him Pater Patriae. 
Each year he called his fighting men. 
And marched a league from home, and then 
Marched back again. 

Sing ho, ho ! &c. 

Neither by force nor false pretence, 
He sought to make his kingdom great. 

And made (O princes, learn from hence)— 
" Live and let live," his rule of state. 

'Twas only when he came to die, 

That his people who stood by, 
Were known to cry. 
Sing ho, ho ! &c. 

The portrait of this best of kings 

Is extant still, upon a sign 
That on a village tavern swings, 

Famed in the country for good wine. 
The people in their Sunday trim. 
Filling their glasses to the brim. 

Look up to him, 
Singing ha, ha, ha ! and he, he, he ! 
That's the sort of king for me. 

288. 12. Goldsmith's incessant desire. This passage may be 
found in Hill's edition of Boswell's Johnson, II, 295. 

288. 34. — Beaiiderk. Topham Beauclerk (1739-1780), one of 
Johnson's famous circle of friends. He was a cultivated man of 
the world, and had a library of thirty thousand volumes. He 
was greatly beloved by the Doctor. 



NOTES. 357 

288. 35. — Tom Davies. Thomas Davies (i 712 P-I785), was a 
book-seller. For some time he was a strolling actor. According 
to Johnson, he was driven from the stage by a line of Churchill's: 

" He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone." 

The best thing Davies ever did was to introduce Boswell to 
Johnson, which introduction is graphically described by the 
former in his great Life. See Hill's edition, I, 453. 

289. 8. — Ranelagh. This vied with Vauxhall Gardens in 
being the great pleasure resort of Londoners in the eighteenth 
century. It stood on the south side of Hans Place, Chelsea. 
Toward the end of the reign of William III, Viscount Ranelagh 
had a villa built at Chelsea, and gardens laid out there. He died 
in 1 7 12. Later the estate was leased by two partners, and a 
company of shareholders formed, who 'converted it into a place of 
amusement. In May, 1742, Ranelagh was opened with a big 
celebration. It was frequented by dandies, high livers, and 
women whose reputation could not be doubted. There is a good 
description of Ranelagh in Smollett's Humphry Clinker. 

289. 8. — The Pantheon. The Pantheon was a splendid build- 
ing, meant chiefly for a fashionable resort in winter. It was 
finished in January, 1772, at a cost of sixty thousand pounds. 
Masquerade balls were generally given in the Pantheon, and 
George III and the nobility freely patronised the place. Its 
reputation, however, became a little shady. On a fearfully cold 
night in 1792 it was destroyed by fire. 

289. 9- — Madame Cornelys. Theresa Cornelys (1723-1797), 
was born at Venice, and was the daughter of an actor. At the 
age of seventeen she became the mistress of an Italian senator, 
and later was famous as a sirger. She took the name of Cornelys 
from a gentleman at Amsterdam. In 1760 she bought Carlisle 
House in Soho Square, London, and became a manager of public 
Assemblies. She advertised on a large scale, and the leading 
men and women in society subscribed to her balls. But the 
opening of the Pantheon ruined her business, and in that year 
(1772) she was a bankrupt. After this misfortune she had a 
varied career, and finally died in the Fleet Prison, on the 19th of 
August, 1797. "Sir John Hawkins, when writing his 'Life of 



358 NOTES. 

Dr. Johnson, ' about ten years before she died, paid the following 
tribute to her memory, evidently in ignorance of the fact that she 
was then alive : ' For most of the refinements in our public diver- 
sions we are indebted to the late Mrs. Cornelys, to whose elegant 
taste for pleasure the magistrates of Turin and Brussels were so 
blind, and of her worth so insensible, that . . . they severally 
drove her out of both those cities. This hospitable country, how- 
ever, afforded her an asylum, and in Westminster she was per- 
mitted to improve our manners.' " — Sydney's England and the 
English in the Eighteenth Century, I, 148. 

289. 10. — The Jessamy Bride. Mary Horneck, an intimate 
friend of Goldsmith, at whose mother's house he was a frequent 
visitor. There were two daughters in the family, Catherine and 
Mary, who were nineteen and seventeen years of age respectively, 
when Goldsmith became intimately acquainted with them. They 
w'.re exceedingly beautiful girls, and Goldsmith called them by 
the pet names "Little Comedy" and "The Jessamy Bride." 
The friendship of the poet for Mary was commented on in his 
own day, and one of his enemies pretended that Goldsmith was 
hopelessly in love with her, which led to a fierce quarrel ; and 
some of his later biographers who delight in romantic adventures 
have maintained that there was much more than mere friendship ; 
but in the absence of evidence, it seems best to believe that the 
mature and impossible Goldsmith and the lovely and affectionate 
girl were the best of comrades and nothing more. She would 
doubtless be amused and delighted with Goldsmith's conversation, 
and their frank camaraderie was probably better understood by 
them than by their biographers. She afterwards became Mrs. 
Gwyn, and died in 1840. She gave her recollections of Gold- 
smith to Prior, who wrote the Life of Goldsmith, and these 
recollections contain some of the best-known . anecdotes of the 
poet's later life. If one wishes to view the relations between 
Mary Horneck and Goldsmith from the extreme romantic point of 
view, and at the same time to get an anti-Boswellian conception 
of the poet's personal character, one cannot do better than read 
the pleasantly written novel. The yessamy Bride (1897), by 
Frankfort Moore. 

289. 15. — Riinbioy. Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), 



NOTES. 359 

was an artist and caricaturist. He was married to Catherine 
Horneck, the beautiful older sister of the '• Jessamy Bride," in 
177 1. He published a series of buriesque illustrations to Tris- 
tram Shandy. Personally he was very attractive, and was on the 
best terms with the most famous men of his day. 

289. i6.—Gi/ray. Thackeray misspells the name. James 
Gillray (1757-T815), a famous caricaturist. His satirical powers, 
which, unlike Bunbury, he chose to cultivate, were very great; 
and his skill in ridicule, together with his daring freedom in using 
it, became the terror of his victims. He was enormously popular; 
but unfortunately he took to drink, and finally lost his mind. 

289. 2g.~^ Something' must be allowed. Boswell's portrait of 
Goldsmith, though exceedingly irritating to the passionate lovers 
of the poet, is probably in the main correct. The peculiarities 
that Boswell describes so graphically were Goldsmith's own ; and 
because a picture is unsympathetic, it does not follow that it is 
untrue. The word " talent " applied to Boswell in line 35 is not 
the right word. Boswell was a genius, and one of the great Eng- 
lish writers. 

290. T.—He asked for a loan from Garrick. For a begging 
letter to the great actor, and the acknowledgment of the money 
received, see Forster's Life of Goldsmith, pages 447, 448. 

290. ^.—Barton. Great Barton, in the county of Suffolk, 
England, was Bunbury's house, where Goldsmith frequently saw 
hi3 friends. 

290. i\.—Hazlitt. William Hazlitt (1778-1830), the famous 
essayist. 

290. 1 5 . —Northcotes paittting-room. James Northcote ( 1 746- 
183 1), a well-known painter and member of the Royal Academy. 
He excelled principally in the painting of portraits. He had lit- 
erary aspirations as well, and in 1813 published a memoir of 
Reynolds, which is the source of the later biographies of that art- 
ist. Hazlitt knew Northcote intimately, and delighted in his con- 
versation, of which he kept full notes. 

290. IT .—The Younger Colman. George Colman the Younger 
(1762-1836) was the son of the dramatist of the same name. See 
note to page 283, Ime i. His best play, the Heir at Law, still 
holds the boards. The quotation given here is from Colman's 



360 NOTES. 



\ 



Random Records, published in 1 831; and in that edition the pas- 
sage occurs in Vol. I, pages 1 10-12, and not where Thackeray 
gives it. Furthermore, Thackeray has garbled and inaccurately 
quoted the passage, though not to change its significance. 

295. 22. — Grand homme incoinpris. The great man not 
understood. 

296. 17. — WJw shall say that our country. Thackeray had 
no sympathy with writers who turned sour because their books 
would not sell, and blamed the public for not appreciating their 
genius. He saw clearly enough that a writer who really has 
genius will sooner or later take his proper place in the annals of 
literature. A high place and a permanent one is occupied by the 
lecturer himself, and if some one were to write a book on the Eng~ 
lish Humourists of the Nineteenth Century, the name of Thack- 
eray would be found among the foremost, as well as the most 
honoured and respected, which cannot be said of all the men 
whom he discussed in his lectures. 



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in Tragedy. These are not only excellent specimens of Classical 
English, but also have a high reputation for the value of their literary 
opinions. The introduction, besides treating of Dryden's life and 
prose style, sets forth clearly how he used the theories of the drama 
which he found in Aristotle, Horace, and Corneille. 

Ford: The Broken Heart. A Spartan Tragedy in verse. 
Edited by Prof. Clinton Scollard of Hamilton College. 
xvi4-i32 pp. 50c. (Buckram, 70c.) 
A play notable for its repressed emotion and psychological interest. 

Charles Lamb wrote : " I do not know where to find in any play a 

catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this " [of The 

Broken Heart]. 

Johnson : Rasselas. Edited by Prof. Oliver Farrar Emerson 
of Adelbert. Ivi+I79 PP- 50c. (Buckram, 70c.) 
The introduction treats of Johnson's style, the circumstances under 
which Rasselas was written, and its place in the history of fiction. 
The notes explain allusions and trace the sources of some of 
Johnson's materials. 

Landor: Selections from the Imaginary Conversations. 

Edited by Prof. A. G. Newcomer of Stanford University 

lix--|-i66 pp. 50c. 
Sixteen of the " Conversations," which have been chosen especially 
because of their vital and stimulating character, which appeals 
strongly to the young student, 
vii, 1900 2 I 



English fadings for Students. 



Lyly ; Endimion. Edited by Prof. Geo. P. Baker of Harvard. 

cxcvi-(-i09 pp. 85c. 

The Academy, London: — " It is refreshing to come upon such a piece of 
sterling work ; . . . the most complete and satisfactory account of Lyly that 
has yet appeared." 

Macaulay and Carlyle : Essays on Samuel Johnson. Edited 
by Dr. William Strunk of Cornell, xl-f-191 pp. 50c. 

These two essays present a constant contrast in intellectual and 
moral methods of criticism, and offer an excellent introduction to the 
study of the literary history of Johnson's times. 

Marlowe : Edward II. With the best passages from Tamburlaine 
the Great, and from his Poems. Edited by the late Prof. 
Edward T. McLaughlin of Yale. xxi-j-iSo pp. 50c. 

Edward II. is not only a remarkable play, but is of great interest 
in connection with Shakespere's Richard II. A comparison of the 
two plays is sketched in the introduction. 

Newman : Prose Selections. Edited by Prof. Lewis E. Gates 
of Harvard. lxii-|-228 pp. 50c. 

Prof. R. G. Moulton oJ" Ufiiiiersity of Chicago : " I am generally suspicious 
of books of selections, but 1 think Newman makes an exceptional case. . . The 
selection seems excellent, and the introduction is well balanced between points of 
form and matter. The whole has one special merit : it is interesting in a high 
degree." 

Tennyson : The Princess. Edited, with introduction, notes, and 
analytic questions, by Prof. L. A. Sherman of the University 
of Nebraska. Ixi-j-iSs pp. 6oc. 

N. E. Journal of Education :— " The pupil will gain materially from such 
a thorough and discerning study of the poem as" this edition presents." 

Thackeray : English Humorists. Edited, with an introduction 
and notes, by Prof, Wm. Lyon Phelps of Yale. 

The features of this new edition are a brief biographical and 
critical introduction, together with explanatory and critical notes. 
' The notes explain all literary and other allusions. 

HFNRY HOI T Rl TO 29 W. 23d St., New York. 

IILIMVI nWLl ex \^\J.^ 378 Wabash Ave, Chicago. 



English fadings for Students. 



1 



Specimens of prose Composition* 

Forms of Discourse. Edited by Prof. E. H. Lewis of Lewis 
Institute, Chicago, 367 pp. i6mo. 60c., net. 

A compact manual, illustrated by 58 selections, chiefly from our 
contemporary authors, and designed to cover the field of the four 
volumes below, where there is not time for such extended work. 

Prose Narration. Edited by Dr. W. T. Brewster of Columbia. 
xxxviii-|-209 pp. i6mo. 50c., net. 

Includes Selections from Scott, Thackeray, Hawthorne, Jane 
Austen, George Eliot, Stevenson, and Henry James. Part I. Ele- 
ments — Plot, Character, Setting, and Purpose. II. Combination 
of the Elements. III. Various Kinds. IV. Technique of Good 
Narrative. 

Prose Description. Edited by Dr. Chas. Sears Baldwin, 
of Yale. xlviii-|-i45 pp. i6mo. ^oc, net. 

Includes : Ancient Athens (Newman); Paris before the Second 
Empire (du Maurier); Byzantium (Gibbon); Geneva (Ruskin); The 
Storming of the Bastille (Carlyle); La Gioconda, etc. (Pater); Blois 
(Henry James); Spring in a Side Street (Brander Matthews). 

Exposition. Edited by Prof. Hammond Lamont of Brown. 
xxiv-|-i8o pp. i6mo. s^c, net. 

Includes: Development of a Brief ; G. C. V. Holmes on the Steam- 
engine ; Huxley on the Physical Basis of Life ; Bryce on the U. S. 
Constitution ; " The Nation" on the Unemployed ; Matthew Arnold 
on Wordsworth ; etc. 

Argumentation. Modern, Edited by Prof. Geo, P. Baker of 
Harvard. 186 pp. i6mo. 50c., tiet. 

Chatham on the withdrawal of troops from Boston, Lord Mans- 
field's argument in the Evans case, the first letter of Junius, the first 
of Huxley's American addresses on evolution, Erskine's defence of 
Lord George Gordon, etc., and specimen brief, 

HhNrvY HULl ex CU., 378 Wabash Xve., Chicago. 
vii, 1900 4 



•' One of the most unportant books on Music that hii:> eveY 
been published.''' — W. J. Henderson, Musical Critic of ^.H^ 
Times. 

LAVIGNAC»S MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 



Translated by William Marchant. Edited by H. E. Krkhbiel. 
With 94 illustrations and 510 examples in musical notation. 2d 

Edition. 504 pp. 8vo. $3.00. 

Dial : " If one had to restrict his musical library to a single volume, we 
doubt whether he could do better than select the work called ' Music and 
Musicians ' . . . We find in this new volume the same lucidity of exposi- 
tion, the same economy of arrangement, and the same comprehensiveness, 
... in fact, although not in form, a veritable encyclopaedia of music, 
and will be found equally satisfactory as a work of reference and as a 
text-book for the actual study of counterpoint, the structure of instru- 
ments, the history of music, and the physical basis of musical production. 
A few supplementary pages, by Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, add American com- 
posers to M. Lavignac's list, and put the finishing touch of usefulness 
upon a work which we cordially recommend to both students and general 
readers." 

"It is impossible to speak too highly of this volume'" {Literary 
Review, Boston). — "The most comprehensive reference-work on music 
published in a single volume and accessible to readers of English " 
{Review of Reviews). — "An encyclopaedia from which all manner of 
curious facts may be drawn" {Literary World). — "A musical library 
in W^eXi'''' {Chicago Tribune). — "A cyclopaedia of knowledge concern- 
ing his art" {Christian Register). — "It adds a great deal that the 
student of music is not likely to get elsewhere " {Sprjvgfield Re- 
publican). — "The most complete and perfect work of its kind" {The 
Home Journal, New York). — " For the musical student and music teacher 
invaluable if not indispensable " (Bujfalo Cojnmercial). — "He has ap- 
portioned his pages with rare good judgment " {Churchtnan). — " It is of 
all things thorough " {Brooklyn Eagle). — " There is nothing superfi- 
cial about it " {Hartford Courant). — ''' it has a reliability and authority 
which give it the highest value " {Chicago Tribune^. — " Distinctly scien- 
tific " {Providence Journal). — " It seems to have been his desire to let no 
interesting topic escape. . . . The wonder is that those parts of the book 
which ought to be dry are so readable. ... A style which can fairly 
be described as fascinating " (JV. Y. Titnes). — " Free from superfluous 
technicalities" {Providence Jozimal). — " He has covered the field with 
French clarity and German thoronghness'' {Springf eld Republican). 
— " Not too technical to be exceedingly useful and enjoyable to every 
intelligent rc&Aer ^'' {Hartford Couratit) — "Lightened with interesting 
anecdotes" {Brooklyn Eagle). — "He writes brilliantly : even the laziest 
or most indifferent will find that he chains the attention and makes a 
perusal of the history of music a delightful recreation " {N. Y. Home 
Journal). 

" Capitally indexed. . . . Mr. Marchant has done his hard task of trans- 
lating exceedingly well " {Transcripf). — ". . . The pictures of the instru- 
ments are clear and helpful " (iV. Y. Times). — "An unusually handsome 
book" {Musical Record). — "This superb volume" {'the IVatchman). — 
"This handsome volume, . . . elegantly printed on the best of p^per, 
and the illustrations are numerous" {Christian Register). — "An excellent 
translator " {Providence Journal). — " Well translated " {School and Home 
Education) — "The translation is excellent; . . .handsomely bound" 
{JLonie Journal)^ 

HENRY HOLT & CO., fr^^^^^^lif:^^,^, 

xn'99 



LUCAS' THE OPEN ROAD 

A little book for wayfarers, bicycle-wise and otherwise. Compiled by E. V. 
Lucas. With illustrated cover-linings. Green and gold flexible covers. 
i2mo. $1.50, retail. 

Some 125 poems (mostly complete) and 25 prose passages, representing over 
60 authors, including Fitzgerald, Shelley, Shakespeare, Kenneth Grahame, 
Stevenson, Whitman, Bliss Carman, Browning, William Watson, Alice 
Meynel, Keats, Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, William Morris, 
Maurice Hewlett, Isaak Walton, William Barnes, Herrick, Gervase Markham, 
Dobson, Lamb, Milton, Whittier, etc. 

Critic : " The selections tell of farewells to winter and the town, of spring 
and the beauty of the earth, of lovers, of sun and cloud and the windy hills, 
of birds, blossoms, and trees— in fact of everything that makes work well-nigh 
impossible when the world of nature begins to wake from its long sleep." 

Dial: "Avery charming book from cover to cover. . . . some things are 
lacking, but all that there is is good." 

New York Tribune : " It has been made with good taste, and is altogether 
a capital publication." 

London Times : " The only thing a poetry-loving cyclist could allege against 
the book is that its fascinations would make him rest too long." 

LUCAS' A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN 

Over 200 poems, representing some 80 authors. With title-page and cover- 
lining pictures n color, and cover in colors and gilt. 

Revised Edition. i2mo. $2.00, retail. 

Critic: " We know of no other anthology for children so complete and well 
arranged." 

Poet Lore : " A child could scarcely get a choicer range of verse to roll over 
in his mind, or be coaxed to it by a prettier volume. ... A book to take note 
of against Christmas and all the birthday gift times of the whole year round." 

BEERS' ENGLISH ROMANTICISM -xvm. century 

Gilt top. 455 pp. i2mo. $2.00, retail. 

New York Commercial Advertiser : "The individuality of his style, its 
humor, its color, its delicacy. . . . will do quite as much to continue its 
author's reputation as his scholarship. . , . The work of a man who has 
studied hard, but who has also lived." 

Outlook: "One of the most important contributions yet made to literary 
history by an American scholar." 

New York Tribune : " No less instructive than readable." 

Nation : " Always interesting. . . . On the whole may be commended as an 
excellent popular treatment of the special subject of the literary revival of 
mediaevalism in the eighteenth century in England." 

Literature : " His analyses are clear and profound. ... A notable example 
of the best type of unpedantic literary scholarship." 

HANCOCK'S THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
AND THE ENGLISH POETS 

With an introduction, on Historical Criticism as an aid to appreciation, by 
Professor Lewis E. Gates of Harvard, xvi + 197 PP- i2mo. $1.25, retail. 

Review of Revieivs : "A very interesting study. . . . He takes up the 
thread of English romanticism where Professor Beers drops it." 

Outlook : " It has a scholar's orderliness, clearness of method, and contin- 
uity. . . . Students . . . will be quick to recognize the conscientious work- 
manship of his volume, and its insight into the spiritual development of a 
group of the foremost English poets of the century." 

HENRY HOLT & CO., New York 



WORKS ON ENGLISH HISTORY. 

HENDERSON'S SIDE-LIGHTS ON ENGLISH HISTORY 

Edited by Ernest F. Henderson, author of " The History 
of Germany in the Middle Ages," etc., with 80 full-page 
illustrations. 300 pp. Quarto. $5.00 net, special. 

An elaborate effort towards vitalizing the study of English 
history. Such topics as the personality of Queen Elizabeth ; 
the execution of Mary Stuart ; characteristic traits of Crom- 
well ; the return of Charles H.; the Stuarts in exile; Queen 
Anne and the Marlboroughs, etc., are illustrated by a wealth 
of extracts from contemporary records, all arranged to give 
the effect of a continuous histor}'. These, with the illustra- 
tions (portraits, facsimiles, caricatures, etc.), reproduced 
from the rarest originals, form perhaps one of the most 
notable bodies of illustrative material ever placed before the 
American student of history. 

Neiv York l^ribiitie : "It is not unlikely that he who has 
dipped into .this book in the early afternoon will find himself 
still reading when night comes .... a better book to put in 
the hands of the lover of history, whether he be a beginner or 
an old student, we do not know." 

LEE'S SOURCE BOOK OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

Edited by Dr. Guy Carleton Lee of Johns Hopkins. 600 
pp. Large i2mo. 

The texts of the most important legal and constitutional 
documents from the earliest Saxon code to the last treaty 
between the British and the Boers. Besides copious illustra- 
tive material from Herodotus to date, and a working bibli- 
ography, that furnishes a clew to every important MS. and 
printed document upon English history. The selections are 
full of human interest, and equally valuable for the general 
reader, the student, the library, and the classroom. 

GRAHAM'S ENGLISH POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 

From Hobbes to Maine. By Prof. William Graham, of 
Queen's College, Belfast, author of "The Creed of Science," 
"Socialism New and Old," etc. xxx -f 415 pp. 8vo. $3.00 
ftet, special. 

A brilliant epitome and criticism of the chief works of the 
period on the subject. In this work the author endeavors 
first to give a compact but connected account of the political 
theories of the greater English political thinkers from the 
days of Hobbes, and secondly to distinguish what is perma- 
nently true from what is doubtful or erroneous, with the end 
of finally producing something like an Introduction to Politi- 
cal Science, resting on authority and reason combined. 
Prof. John W. Burgess of Columbia: "I consider it the best 
work on the subject ever published in the English language. 
I have no doubt it will be extensively used in all the universi- 
ties of this country." 

HENRY HOLT & CO. ^^^^i^ofi'^' 



RINGWALTS AMERICAN ORATORY 

Selections, with introduction and notes, by Ralph C. Ring- 
WALT, formerly Instructor in Columbia University. 334 pp. 
i2mo. $1.00, net. 

Contains Schurz's General Amnesty, Jeremiah S. Black's 
Trial by Jury , Phillips's Daniel O' Connell, Depew's Inaugura- 
tion of Washington; Curtis's The Leadership of Educated Men, 
Henry W. Grady's The New South, and Beecher's The Sepul- 
chre in the Garden. 

F. N. Scott, Professor in the University of Michigan : " An 
extremely sensible book." 

D. L. Maulsby, Professor in Tufts College, Mass. : " The 
opening essay is the best on its subject that I have seen of re- 
cent years. It shows grasp on both the early and later litera- 
ture of the subject, and is thoroughly alive to modern 
conditions." 

A. G. Newcomer, Professor in Le land Stanford University : 
" The essay on the theory of oratory is one of the most sensible 
and at the same time stimulating essays of the kind I have 
ever seen." 

Ralph W. Thomas, Professor in Colgate University: "It is 
a work that the individual student should have constantly at 
hand." 



WAGNER'S MODERN POLITICAL ORATIONS (British) 

Edited by Leopold Wagner, xv + 344 pp. i2mo. %i. 00, net. 

A collection of some of the most notable examples of the po- 
litical oratory of the present reign. Includes Brougham on Ne- 
gro Emancipation; Fox and Cobden on the Corn Laws; Bright 
on the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act; Butt and Morley on 
Home Rule; Gladstone on the Beaconsfield Ministry; Parnell 
on the Coercion Bill; and others by Beaconsfield, Russell, Ran- 
dolph Churchill, Chamberlain, Macaulay, Bulwer-Lytton, 
Cowen, Bradlaugh, McCarthy, etc., etc. 



HENRY HOLT & CO. ^^ ^W^SrS^^' 



^^ I do not know where else, within the limits, to find so delightful 
a selection of noble poems."— Prof Thomas R. Price of Columbia. 

PANCOAST'S STANDARD ENGLISH POEMS 



From Spenser to Tennyson. Selected and edited by HENRY 
S. Pancoast, author of An Introduction to English Litera- 
ture., etc. 749 pp. i6mo. $1.50, net. 

Some 250 complete poems, besides selections from such long 
poems as "The Faerie Queene," " Childe Harold's Pilgrim- 
age," etc. 

There are 19 pages of Ballads, 33 of Spenser, 22 of Elizabethan 
Songs and Lyrics, 16 of Elizabethan Sonnets, 51 of Seven- 
teenth Century Songs, 51 of verse from Dryden to Thomson, 
277 of verse from Thomson to Tennyson, and 100 of Victorian 
verse, 164 of Notes (chiefly biographical and appreciative), 
and an index of titles. 

New York Tribune : " We believe it will be received cordially 
by all lovers of poetry, whether elementary students or not. Basing 
his selections on the individual excellence and historic importance 
of the poems, the editor has not allowed his fidelity to the latter test 
to overrule his taste, and there is very little matter in the book 
which is historically significant alone. First and last, this is an 
anthology of the best poetry." 

Prof. Henry A. Beers of Yale, author of "English Romanticism in 
the Eighteenth Century," etc.: " The collection seems to me in gen- 
eral made with excellent judgment, and the notes are sensible, help- 
ful, and not too weitldufig." 

Prof. Albert S. Cook of Yale : "A thoroughly good selection, and 
the notes are judicious, so far as I have examined." 

Prof. William Hand Browne of Johns Hopkins: "The scope is 
amply wide, and the selections as judicious as was possible under the 
limitations. The notes, judging from a hasty glance, seem full and 
clear." 

Prof. Charles W. Kent of the University of Virginia : " Contains 
nearly all the poems I would wish in such a volume and very few 
that I would readily dispense with." 

Prof. James M. Dixon of Washington University: "It is just 
such a handy volume as can be made, by a sympathetic teacher, a 
companion to the scholar for life." 

HENRY HOLT- & CO., /;lwaSth^iVe'!.ThL°i^, 

i Z900 



PANCOASTVS mXRODUCTIO N TO ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

By Henry S. Pancoast. 556 pp. i2mo. $1.25 net. 

" It asumes a study of and not about English literature; 
it assumes that one author differeth from another in glory 
and influence, and that in an introductory course only 
those of predominant, influence can be studied." — Frof. 
E. E. Wentivorth, Vassar College. 

" It treats of movements — is not merely a catalogue of 
names and a record of critical ratings. Not even the 
dullest pupil can study it without feeling the historical 
and logical continuity of English literature." — Nation. 

It describes the political and social conditions of the 
successive periods ; notes foreign as well as domestic in- 
fluences ; emphasizes the relations of literature to history,. 

^' Its criticism is of a kind to stimulate investigation 
rather than to supplant it." — A. J. George, Newton 
{Mass.) High School. 

The nineteenth centii/y, for the first time in such a 
book, receives its fair share of attention. 

In style it is " interesting," says Prof. Winchester of 
Wesleyan Uinversity {Conn?), *' readable and stimulating," 
says Prof. Hart of Cornell^ " interesting and sensible," 
says Prof. Sampson of Indiana University, " attractive," 
says Prof. Gilmore of Rochester University, "well writ- 
ten," says Prof. Czarnomska of Smith College. 

It is fully equipped with teaching apparatus. The 
''Study Lists" give references for collateral reading, and, 
in the case of the most suitable works, hints and sugges- 
tive questions. Comparative chronological tables, a 
literary map of England, and a plan of Shakespeare's 
London are included. 

HFlSlRY HOI T /^ rO 29 W, 23d St., NEW YORK 
1 1 C IN I\ I n ^ L 1 d \J<J.- 3Y8 Wabasli Ave-, CEICAQO 

II, 1900 



►Pancoast's Introduction to American Literature. 
By Henry S. Pancoast, author of " Representative English Literature." 
3fiH-393pp. i6mo. $i.oo. 

The primary aim is to help the pupil to approach certain 
typical works in the right spirit, and to understand and enjoy 
them. He is led to observe the origin and history of the 
literature and the forces which have helped to shape and 
develop it ; he is taught to regard literature as a part of 
national history, and to relate it to contemporaneous events 
and social conditions. He is made to take up the works 
suggested for study in their chronological sequence, and to 
note their relations to each other and to their time. 

In the sketches of the few leading writers selected for com- 
paratively extended treatment the effort is to avoid dry 
biographical details, and to present each author as a distinct 
living person. In the critical portion the object is rather to 
stimulate appreciation and lead the student to judge for him- 
self than to force opinions on him in a purely dogmatic spirit. 



J. M. Hart. Professor in Cornell 
University : — Seen:is to me to ac- 
complish exactly what it attempts; 
it introduces the reader carefully 
and systematically to the subject. 
The several chapters are well 
proportioned, and the tone of the 
entire work is one of kindly and 
enlightened sympathy. 

Edwin M. Hopkins, Professo^ 
in the University of Kansas : — It 
seems to me fully entitled to take 
rank w^ith his English Literature 
as a text-book, and I shall at once 
place it on my list recommended 
for high-school work. 

The Nation :— Quite the best 
brief manual of its subject that 
we know. . . . National traits are 
! well brought out without neglect- 
ling organic connections with the 
1 mother country. Forces and 
i movements are as well handled 
as personalities, the influence of 
writers hardly less than their in- 
dividuality, 

\ 



A. G. Newcomer, Professor in 
Leland Stanford University : — He 
succeeds in saying the just and 
needful thing without beingtempt- 
ed beyond, and students of the 
work can hardly fail to obtain the 
right profit from our literature 
and the right attitude toward it. 

H. Humphrey Neill, Professor 
in Amherst College .'—Having used 
Mr. Pancoast's book on English 
Literature for three years with my 
class, I know about what to ex- 
pect from the present volume, and 
am sure it will fill the place de- 
manded in the teaching of Amer- 
ican Literature which his other 
book so well fills in the teaching 
of English Literature. 

The Dial:— We find in the vol- 
ume now before us the same well- 
chosen diction, sobriety of judg- 
ment, and sense of perspective 
that characterized its predecessor. 
We should say that no better book 
had yet been produced for use in 
our secondary schools. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY , 
LETTERS 

EDITED BY R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON 

SWIFT, ADDISON, AND STEELE 

With an introduction by Stanley Lane Poole, and Lemercier- 
gravures of the three letter-writers. Laid paper, gilt top, half 
velluin. i2mo. fi.75, ^tet. 

•*Mr. Britnley Johnson deserves the gratitude of all lovers of 
good literature, as of all lovers of the eighteenth century, for 
publishing so judicious and agreeable a volume as Eighteenth- 
Century Letters. The letters are selected, he tells us, chiefly 
on literary grounds ; and, as Mr. Lane Poole says in his intro- 
duction to Vol. L, 'the correspondence collected in this volume 
centres on the incomparable influence of Swift.' These are of fas- 
. cinating style, and if ever it was right ' the many-headed beast 
should know ' a man's private life and thoughts, such curiosity is 
justified in the case of the satirist. Satire requires a certain detach- 
ment of intellect from moral and personal consideration; but in 
reading Swift's letters we see to what an extreme pitch intellectual 
abstraction may be carried. The cynic misanthrope in public, he 
shows in private a childlike humanity and kindness. Here is the 
author of Gulliver reeling of? two or three pages of words ending in 
-ling to Dr. Sheridan, joking with ' Patty ' Blount on their ages, de- 
scribing to Vanessa his days and his nights with all the charm of in- 
timate triviality ; now rallying a correspondent on bad spelling, and 
now penning to a fallen Minister a letter which has all the beauties 
of an elegant and dignified pamphlet without any loss of epistolary 
ease and familiarity. And no less pleasing are the letters addressed 
to Swift— the philosophy of Bolingbroke, the humorous gossip of 
Gay, the wit of Arbuthnot. Then we have specimens of the elabo- 
rate finish of Addison, as judicious, balanced, and polished in his 
letters as his essays proper. But more wecome still are the notes 
that Steele scribbled ofT to 'Prue.' 'Dear Prue,— I enclose you a 
guinea for your pockett' ; or, ' Dear Prue,— 1 send you seven pen'orth 
of wall nutts at five a penny, which is the greatest proof I can give 
you at present of my being, with my whole heart. Yours Richd. 
Steele.' The book is further adorned by admirable Lemercier-grav- 
ures of the three letter -writers, and in every way so turned out as 
to attract. Mr. Johnson promises fresh volumes to cover, by a 
system of selected groups, the whole range of the eighteenth 
century. We look forward with pleasure to more of the same kind 
as this foretaste.''''— Literature. 

JUST PUBLISHED. 

JOHNSON AND LORD CHESTERFIELD 

With an introduction by George Birbeck Hill, and Lemercier- 
grauvres of both letter-writers. Laid paper, gilt top, half vellum. 
i2mo. $1.75, net. 

HENRY HOLT & CO., ^ ^ov?^^o?r"' 
^1 % H* ' 









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